Joanna M. Jacobs
Acting Director, Office of Dispute Resolution
U.S. Department of Justice
Suite 5738
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20530
joanna.jacobs@usdoj.gov
(202)305-4439
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Joanna Jacobs had more than twenty years of litigation experience before
developing an interest in alternative dispute resolution processes.
Her litigation in almost 50 jury trials spanned a wide range of areas,
including both criminal and civil.
Joanna graduated with Honors from the University of New Mexico and
attended Catholic University School of Law, graduating in 1978. After
a clerkship on the D.C. Court of Appeals, she joined the Criminal
Division of the Department of Justice. After gathering extensive trial
experience in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of
Columbia, she joined the Organized Crime and Racketeering Strike Force
in Newark, New Jersey where she supervised lengthy corruption investigations
involving analysis of massive amounts of financial information as
well as electronic surveillance. She was successful, after a four-month
trial, of obtaining convictions against eight high-ranking Teamster
officials who were looting their union welfare funds for personal
gain, for which she received the Criminal Division’s Special
Commendation Award.
Upon a family move to Philadelphia, she continued to prosecute police
corruption and fraud cases in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, eventually shifting to the Civil
Division where she handled both affirmative and defensive litigation.
After almost ten years of government service, Joanna entered private
practice in a small Philadelphia firm, with New Jersey offices, and
became interested in ADR in serving her clients’ needs for a
quicker and less costly resolution of multi-party and complex business
disputes.
She taught criminal trial advocacy at the Attorney General’s
Advocacy Institute in the late 1980’s, and taught a semester
long course in ADR at Rutgers Law School in 2004-05. In 2005-06, she
spent a year as a consultant traveling throughout Bulgaria developing
court referred mediation programs in anticipation of their entry into
the European Union, lecturing and training attorneys and judges in
mediation techniques.
She rejoined the Department of Justice in August, 2006, as the Deputy
Director of the Office of Dispute Resolution where she continues to
conduct attorney trainings and promote use of ADR processes in the
Department of Justice and throughout the Executive Branch.