Sam Jacobs

Sam Jacobs is a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in criminal justice and legal linguistics. Formerly a supervising attorney at San Francisco's Habeas Corpus Resource Center, she represented death-row inmates in post-conviction proceedings and now consults on capital cases while conducting academic research.

Her educational background includes:

• BA from Brown University
• JD from Yale Law School
• MFA from Pacific University

Dr. Jacobs' research examines how courtroom narratives and linguistic biases contribute to wrongful convictions and sentencing disparities, with expertise spanning Capital Punishment, Criminal Law/Procedure, Law and Society, and Racial/Social Justice. Her collaborative work with University of Chicago sociolinguist Dr. Sharese King on language bias in legal contexts is forthcoming in Linguistics Vanguard (September 2024).

While no formal advising roles or research grants are documented in her current profile, her scholarship bridges legal practice and academic analysis through a critical justice lens.