Jan Jacobowitz Biography
Jan L Jacobowitz, Esq.
Jan Jacobowitz is the Director of the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Program in the Center for Ethics and Public Service at the University of Miami’s School of Law. The program provides an opportunity for students to apply their study of professional responsibility and legal ethics in a variety of real world settings. Ms. Jacobowitz guides the students in the research, drafting and presentation of Ethics CLE seminars throughout the South Florida legal community. Students also participate in other ethics projects such as legal symposia and round table luncheon events.
Ms. Jacobowitz has presented Ethics CLE Seminars on a wide range of issues to audiences whose main practice areas vary and have included bankruptcy, commercial litigation, real estate, family law, disability law and immigration law.
Ms Jacobowitz also participates in panel presentations such as the Social Security Disability Law Conference for which she published, “The First Amendment and The Legal Profession: Is Silence Golden?” She also spoke at the Florida Association of Women Lawyers Luncheon (FAWL), The Battle Against Bias—Cultural Awareness and the Practice of Law and wrote “A Rose By Any Other Name---Enhancing Professionalism through Cultural Awareness” for the FAWL Spring 2009 Journal.
Ms. Jacobowitz has a diverse legal background which she brings to the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Program. She began her career as a Legal Aid Attorney for the District of Columbia. Ms. Jacobowitz then practiced family law and directed the personal injury law department at Robert Ades and Associates, the District of Columbia’s first prepaid and reduced fee law firm providing legal services to members of labor unions. Ms. Jacobowitz’s career continued at the Department of Justice in the Office of Special Investigations as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals who had illegally entered the United States after WWII.
Ms. Jacobowitz moved to Miami in 1986 and became a partner in the firm of Dunn and Dresnick where she was litigator practicing primarily in the areas of commercial and employment law. Ms Jacobowitz became a Senior Staff Counsel for American Bankers Insurance Group in 1990.
Ms Jacobowitz entered the world of education in 2002 when she became a teacher for Coral Reef Senior High. Ms Jacobowitz not only taught law in the Legal Magnet Program, but also successfully coached the school’s mock trial, moot court and Constitutional law teams. She received both the We the People Constitution Education Award and the Gavel Award for High School Moot Court Competition from the Florida Law Related Education Association in 2006. The Florida Supreme Court awarded Ms. Jacobowitz the Chief Justice Commendation for Leadership in Judicial Education in 2006.
Ms Jacobowitz has a B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University and a J.D. from George Washington University.