Professor Baron has a strong academic interest in the matter of subrogation on personal injury claims and related ERISA reimbursement issues. He has authored three significant law review articles which address subrogation and reimbursement issues in the context of personal injury claims. They are as follows:

Public Policy Considerations Warranting Denial of Reimbursement to ERISA Plans: It’s Time to Recognize the Elephant in the Courtroom, 55 Mercer Law Review 595 (2004).

Subrogation: A Pandora's Box Awaiting Closure, 41 South Dakota Law Review 237 (1996).

Subrogation on Medical Expense Claims: The "Double Recovery" Myth and the Feasibility of Anti-Subrogation Laws, 96 Dickinson Law Review 581 (1992).

In early 2007 Professor Baron authored the article, Eight Ways to Defeat or Minimize ERISA Reimbursement Claims. This article has been published (or is in the process of being published) in journals produced by the Trial Lawyers’ Associations in the states of Nevada, South Dakota, Ohio, Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nebraska, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Montana, Florida, and Arkansas.

Acting at the request of New Jersey Senator Toricelli and with the encouragement of then majority leader South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, Professor Baron drafted federal legislation which would have implemented the “make whole” doctrine into the ERISA scheme. This legislation was considered, but not adopted, as part of the “Patients’ Bill of Rights” which the Senate passed in the summer of 2001. (The Patients Bill of Rights never progressed any further in light of the subsequent Republican domination of Congress which followed 9/11.)

During the year 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives enacted a provision in its version of the Pension Reform Act which would have given ERISA plans an unqualified right of reimbursement. At the request of ATLA, certain members of Congress, and other interested groups, Professor Baron actively lobbied the 27 Senators and Representatives who sat on the Conference Committee appointed to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the Pension Reform Act of 2006. As a result of the hard efforts of all who lobbied against the reimbursement provision, the House Amendment to the Pension Reform Act was defeated.