Ambassador Robert Jordan has been a partner in the law firm of Baker Botts LLP since 2004. He heads the firm’s Middle East practice and focuses on issues relating to international business, government relations, and international arbitration and dispute resolution.

From 2001 to 2003, he was U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He took up the post following the September 11 terrorist attacks against the U.S., a critical time in the relationship between the two countries.

Ambassador Jordan earned his B.A. from Duke University in 1967, his M.A. from the University of Maryland in 1971 while serving in the US Navy and his J.D. from the University of Oklahoma’s College of Law in 1974. He is a member of the American Arbitration Association Commercial Panel of Arbitrators, the National Panel of Distinguished Neutrals of the CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, and the London Court of International Arbitration.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is president of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations and  vice chairman of the board of directors of the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University. He also serves on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Center for American and International Law and the advisory board of the Center's Institute for Transnational Arbitration.

He is diplomat in residence and adjunct professor of political science at Southern Methodist University, where he teaches a course on the Middle East. In 2007 the Dallas Bar Foundation presented him with its Fellows Award.