Education

M.A., University of Wisconsin
J.D., University of Wisconsin

Biography

Before joining the UW Law School faculty, Prof. Baumgartner was an associate and partner with Madison’s DeWitt law firm for many years. There, she concentrated on nationwide business and environmental litigation, handling cases in such areas as civil RICO, franchise and dealership, and environmental insurance. After serving pro bono as an environmental consultant in China, she affiliated "of counsel" with Gagliardi, Nelson & O'Brien, S.C., where she continued to practice law and pursue her international public service interests. 

In 2004, Prof. Baumgartner's public service interests turned to teaching advocacy skills at the Law School. In addition to teaching, she also agreed to serve as curriculum adviser for 1L research and writing, and she did so for several years. She taught full time in the Legal Research and Writing Program from 2012 until 2017 when she retired from full-time teaching. From 2006 to 2016, seven of her persuasive writing students won the annual Best Brief Competition. 

Over the years, Prof. Baumgartner’s litigation and appellate practice has covered matters ranging from family and elder law issues to the First Amendment. She has written hundreds of briefs and petitions to trial courts, state appellate courts, the Seventh Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet, her interests in teaching and in writing stem, in part, from her experiences before practicing law. An avid student of languages, she studied in Argentina and Germany before transferring to the UW-Madison to study Chinese and Japanese. In graduate school, she did psycholinguistic studies of the Chinese writing system, translated Chinese short stories into English for publication in literary anthologies, received training in language teaching, and taught ESL to foreign students enrolled at the UW. She then taught for a year at the Colegio de Postgraduados in Chapingo, Mexico. Upon her return to Madison, she entered law school and obtained her J.D. after completing an accelerated two-year program.