Lori Kirkland began her career doing temp work at different studios until she landed a job as a writers' assistant on a sitcom. This position inspired her to try her hand at writing television comedy. She spent her spare time working on spec scripts until she had the material necessary to secure an agent and her first staff position in 1994 on the short lived comedy series "Blue Skies" for ABC. Upon its cancellation, she promptly moved on to "Wings" and began her decade long relationship with Paramount Network Television.

Kirkland worked on "Frasier" for its final seven seasons. She started as a writer and moved up the pecking order from co-producer, producer, supervising producer, co-executive producer and at the start of the tenth season she became executive producer. She received Emmy Award nominations in which she won one Emmy in 1998 for Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2003 Baker was honored with the prestigious Writer's Guild award for the "Frasier" episode "Rooms With A View", along with Dan O'Shannon and Bob Daily, and was a finalist for the Humanitas Prize that same year. From the start of the eleventh, and fianl season, she was credited as Lori Kirkland Baker after marrying Brian Baker in mid 2003.

Lori Kirkland Baker was raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts and attended University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she studied journalism and political science. She currently resides in the Newport Beach area with her husband Brian Baker.