Soon after, he wrote on drama “China Beach”, earning a Writers Guild of America Award nod. Baer then began writing on the first season of the hit series “ER” before being promoted to story editor by season two. Three seasons in, Baer became a co-producer and was among several nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1997. A year later, he alone was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for a specific episode. By the seventh season, Baer had worked his way up to executive producer of “ER” and earned his fifth straight Emmy nod for Outstanding Drama Series. He left the show to join “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”, where he stayed for ten seasons. Since then, Baer has written for several unmade pilot episodes before landing on “Under the Dome” as an executive producer. In 2014, Baer came out publicly as gay.