Jan L. Jacobowitz
Director, Professional Responsibility and Ethics Program & Lecturer in Law
J.D., George Washington University
B.S., Northwestern University
Jan L. Jacobowitz is a Lecturer in Law and the Director of the Professional Responsibility & Ethics Program (PREP) at the University of Miami’s School of Law. Under Jan’s direction, PREP was a 2012 recipient of the ABA’s E Smythe Gambrell Award---the leading national award for a professionalism program. Jan has presented at hundreds of Ethics CLE Seminars and has been a featured speaker or panelist on topics such as Legal Ethics in Social Media and Advertising, Lawyer’s First Amendment Rights, Cultural Awareness in the Practice of Law, Cybersecurity, Mindful Ethics, Litigation Funding, eDiscovery, Conflicts of Interest, and Attorney Fees. She has also authored law review and journal articles in many of these areas.
Jacobowitz is the co-author of the book, Legal Ethics and Social Media, A Practitioner’s Handbook, published by the ABA in June 2017. She developed the curriculum for the course Social Media and the Law and is among the first law school faculty throughout the country to teach the course.
Jacobowitz also co-developed and teaches Mindful Ethics: Professional Responsibility for Lawyers in the Digital Age, which served as the catalyst for the book that she co-authored, Mindfulness & Professional Responsibility—Incorporating Mindfulness into the Law School Curriculum.
Jacobowitz is the President of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL), the co-chair of the Future of Lawyering Committee and a member of the Attorney Advertising Committee. She is one of the co-authors of Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers 2015 Report on the Regulation of Lawyer Advertising and the Committee’s 2016 Supplemental Report, both of which laid the groundwork for the ABA’s recent revisions to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct pertaining to attorney advertising. Jan was previously APRL’s liaison to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Professionalism and served recently as the liaison to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. She is currently APRL’s liaison to the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility Coordinating Counsel.
Jacobowitz in an Ethics Commissioner on the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and the Public Trust. She is the former Vice Chairman of the Broward Selection/Oversight Committee for the Inspector General’s Office. She is a member of the ADL Civil Rights Committee and the Miami Dade Task Force on Mindfulness.
Jacobowitz represents University of Miami School of Law on the Florida Bar’s CLE Committee and served as the Law School’s United Way Ambassador for the past ten years. She also served as the faculty advisor to the University of Miami School of Law Alumni Association for the past two years.
In 2018, Jacobowitz was nominated and invited to become an American Bar Foundation Fellow, which is “a global honorary society of attorneys, judges, law faculty, and legal scholars whose public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and to the welfare of their communities. Membership in the Fellows is limited to one percent of lawyers licensed to practice in each jurisdiction. Fellows are recommended by their peers and elected by the Board of the American Bar Foundation.”
Prior to devoting herself to legal education, Jacobowitz practiced law for over twenty years. She began her career as a Legal Aid attorney in the District of Columbia; prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the Office of Special Investigations of the U.S. Department of Justice; and was in private practice with general practice and commercial litigation firms in Washington and Miami.
Jacobowitz has a J.D. from George Washington University and a B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University. She is an active member of the Florida Bar, the D.C. Bar and the California Bar and is a certified civil court mediator. Jacobowitz and her family have made South Florida their home for the past 33 years.
Publications
Media Appearances
Courses
Area of Expertise
Websites and Blogs
Legal Ethics In Motion
Professional Responsibility & Ethics Program