Mr. Jakob was born in California and raised in Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree (dual major in economics and government) at the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University, then a master's degree in economics at Duke University.   After working as an economist in Washington, D.C., he returned to Ohio.  There he earned his MBA (on a merit scholarship) and law degree at the Ohio State University.

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During law school Mr. Jakob was a published author in, and managing editor of, The Ohio State Law Journal (the law school's flagship law review). He was also a member of an award-winning moot court team and a symposium editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.   He served as a student extern for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and, after graduating from law school,  clerked for a federal district court judge in the Eastern District of California. 

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Mr. Jakob began his career as an appellate lawyer in the field of constitutional and civil rights law.  This work crossed-over into unfair business practices cases and he began to handle the defense of insurance coverage ("bad faith") and business tort cases.  He then became a "lawyer's lawyer" as other attorneys sought his representation in cases alleging professional misconduct.  Some of the latter cases raised issues under consumer protection laws, such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act..

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Mr. Jakob has experience in every stage of civil litigation, including alternative dispute resolution (e.g. mediation); civil litigation; trials; appeals; judgment enforcement; and bankruptcy litigation.  He is admitted to practice in California courts and various federal courts.  He has lectured in law schools and taught continuing legal education courses.  His work has been discussed in law reviews, newspapers, radio shows, and magazines (such as Forbes).   It has also been reprinted elsewhere (e.g., Gerald Gunther & Gerhard Casper, eds., Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional Law (Bethesda: University Publications of America 1997).. 

 

Mr. Jakob is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute.