Stetson University College of Law Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law Bruce Jacob has recently been named a Power 100 Advocate by the media company On Being a Black Lawyer for his commitment to diversity in the legal profession. On Being a Black Lawyer will publish the second annual edition of “The Power 100” on Feb. 1, 2013, in honor of Black History Month.

Honorees, including the nation’s most influential black attorneys working in government, academics, the public and private sectors, as well as non-black attorneys who have championed diversity, will be recognized at an evening reception at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 27, 2013.

Jacob began his career in 1960 as a Florida assistant attorney general. As a young lawyer, he represented the respondent in the historic 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court ruled that state courts are required to provide defendants unable to afford attorneys with counsel in criminal cases. Jacob was one of the first attorneys in Florida to volunteer to work as a public defender after the decision in Gideon.

After joining the Emory University School of Law faculty, Jacob established the Legal Assistance for Inmates Program at the Atlanta Penitentiary. He was appointed by the Supreme Court as counsel for petitioner in the 1969 case, Kaufman v. United States. While at Harvard Law School, Jacob helped establish the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project and supervised law students defending criminal cases and representing indigents in civil matters in the Community Legal Assistance Office in Cambridge, Mass.

Jacob is an author and co-author of articles on criminal law and procedure, civil rights and civil liberties, and the administrative law of corrections. He has served as professor and director of Clinical Programs at The Ohio State University College of Law, as dean and professor of the Mercer University School of Law and as vice president of Stetson University and dean of Stetson University College of Law from 1981-94. Jacob was inducted into the Stetson Law Hall of Fame in 2004.

Since beginning his teaching career in 1965, Jacob has taught 20 different law school courses. He presently teaches courses on constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law and criminal procedure at Stetson University College of Law. Jacob is a member of the National Right to Counsel Committee that prepared the 2009 report, “Justice Denied: America’s Continuing Neglect of our Constitutional Right to Counsel.” He is actively working on the clemency petition for Jerome Davis, a man sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent offense, and is representing Florida inmate Dwight Roberts in his appeal before the Florida Supreme Court.

On Being a Black Lawyer, owned by Lawyers of Color Inc., has been recognized by the American Bar Association, National Black Law Students Association and National Association of Black Journalists. Founded in 2008 as a news and resource center, the company has grown into a social media firm providing research, career development and brand marketing. Read more on this and other news releases and features at Stetson College of Law at law.stetson.edu/.