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Pat Baker (she/her/hers)

Senior Benefits Policy Advocate
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Patricia Baker joined MLRI’s Benefits Practice Group in 1983. As a Senior Policy Advocate at MLRI, She works at both the state and federal level on a range of legislative, administrative, and policy matters that affect low-income families, elders and persons with disabilities. Prior to joining MLRI, Pat was an advocate in Western Massachusetts Legal Services from 1977 to 1983 where she focused on disability, unemployment, and public benefits cases. Pat has authored and edited numerous basic rights manuals including MLRI's annual "SNAP Advocacy Guide", a 2019 report "Denying Food and Shaming Children: Unpaid School Meal Policies in Massachusetts"; co-authored in April 2019 the “Connecting Community College Students to SNAP” report with the Center for Law and Social Policy and numerous other reports. Pat is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for her advocacy, including the 2013 Dr. Raymond Wheeler/Senator Paul Wellstone Anti-Hunger Advocacy Leadership Award, the 2014 Eos Foundation Changing the Equation Award and the 2009 Kit Clark Award, 1995 National Lawyers Guild MA Chapter Legal Worker Award and many others. Pat’s advocacy has contributed to a significant reversal of the state’s low food stamp/SNAP participation rate during 2000-2004. Through her advocacy, Massachusetts has adopted state policy changes and federal options that have both removed access barriers and increased the value of monthly food stamp benefits. Most recently, Pat was the lead advocate behind successul legislation prohibiting school meal shaming in Massachusetts, Chapter 62 of the Acts of 2021, co-lead the SNAP Gap/Common App Coalition that successfully secured a state law requring Massachusetts to create a common application portal for key means-tested public benefits, Chapter 174 of the Acts of 2022. She is currently co-leading the Massachusetts Hunger Free Campus Campaign and the Feeding Our Neighbors Campaign (state-funded benefits for immigrants).


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