Charles Mcleod Baird

Charles M. Baird died (he disliked the term “passed away”) at age 79 on June 23, 2020. He is survived by his daughter Ellen R. Baird and his brother W. Joseph Baird. He was an Atlanta native of Southern parentage, but his remote ancestors on his father’s side were from Massachusetts. He was the direct descendent of two of the militia men who fought the British in the Battle of Lexington in 1775.

Baird spent his high school years in Moultrie, Georgia, and then attended Emory University, where he was a John Gordon Stipe Scholar, an actor with the Emory Players, a writer for the humor magazine, and a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon social fraternity. 

After college he studied philosophy for a year, then joined the U.S. Navy and served as an officer on a nuclear submarine tender based in Spain. After his tour in the Navy he obtained a law degree and went into poverty law. He was hired by the newly established Georgia Legal Services Program as a specialist attorney in its central office.

After ten years with GLSP he left the law to study at Stanford University, where he received a full graduate fellowship in linguistics. He later returned to the legal profession, taking a position with Legal Services of Greater Miami. A few years thereafter he established a pro-bono private practice in Miami representing indigent homeowners against predatory mortgage lenders, in both individual and class litigation. He subsequently moved this practice to Atlanta. Throughout his years in private practice he never charged any of his clients a fee. None of them had any money.

In his spare time Baird enjoyed reading the literary classics, especially Shakespeare, and among modern writers developed a special interest in Joyce. He founded the Atlanta Shakespeare Club, which supported the formation of the acting troupe that established the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern. He also organized a reading group that puzzled its way through Joyce’s Ulysses and subsequently, after merging with another group, discussed many other literary masterpieces, beginning with the major Greek tragedies. 

In accordance with Baird’s wishes there will be no public memorial service. Anyone who wishes to make a donation in his memory should contribute to an organization that is involved with or supports the arts.