John Baldwin QC took a first class degree in Agricultural Chemistry at Leeds University followed by a D.Phil. at St. John's College, Oxford. Thereafter he completed a 3 year post doctoral research fellowship in Oxford. He was called to the Bar in 1977 and was awarded the Lord Justice Holker Senior Award by Gray's Inn. He took silk in 1991. He was elected a Bencher of Gray's Inn in 2000. He practices in all areas of intellectual property law, his work dividing fairly equally between patent, trade mark and copyright work. Media and entertainment forms another core area of his work. Other areas include confidential information, computer law, passing off, trade libel, EC law, data protection, restrictive covenants and restraint of trade.

In 2007 John appeared in the Court of Appeal on behalf of Random House n in the case of Baigent v Random House and others. The case related to the alleged copyright infringement in the well known book The Da Vinci Code. The case attracted substantial media attention and was successful at first instance and in the Court of Appeal