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
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.