Bruce R. Jacob

Biography

Professor Jacob began his career in 1960 as an Assistant Attorney General of the State of Florida. There he represented the respondent in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) and he represented the state in 19 appeals before the Florida Supreme Court and District Courts of Appeal of Florida. He then joined the firm of Holland, Bevis & Smith, now Holland & Knight, in Bartow and Lakeland, FL. While at that firm he became a part-time volunteer Special Assistant Public Defender in the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Florida. After completing his LL.M. degree at Northwestern University, Professor Jacob joined the faculty of Emory University School of Law. There he established the Legal Assistance for Inmates Program, providing legal assistance to inmates of the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, GA. He was appointed by the Supreme Court as counsel for petitioner in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217 (1969), and handled several appellate cases in federal courts, such as Rosa v. United States, 397 F.2d 401 (5th Cir. 1968), and trial-level cases including White v. Blackwell, 277 F. Supp. 211 (N.D. Ga. 1967) and Lawrence v. Blackwell, 298 F. Supp. 708 (N.D. Ga. 1969), challenging prison rules and practices on constitutional grounds. While at the Harvard Law School, he served as Research Associate in the Center for Criminal Justice, was the co-founder of the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project, and supervised law students in the defense of criminal cases and the representation of indigents in civil matters in the Community Legal Assistance Office, a Harvard legal services office.

Research Interest

Commercial Finance Law, Law’s Dispute