Sam Jacobs

Assistant Professor of Legal Writing

Full-Time Faculty

Biography

Sam Jacobs is an Assistant Professor of Legal Research and Writing at the University of San Francisco School of Law where she also teaches a seminar on capital punishment. She is a lecturer at Berkeley Law where she teaches Fundamentals of U.S. Law.

Prior to teaching, Sam worked as a capital postconviction defense attorney in Louisiana and California. She continues to consult on capital cases. Her research focuses on the construction of legal narratives and how racially biased language and discursive practices impact the outcomes in criminal trials.

Expertise

Capital punishment
Criminal law

Research Areas

Capital punishment
Criminal law
Language and the law

Education

Yale Law School, JD
Pacific University, MFA
Brown University, BA

Prior Experience

Supervising Counsel, Habeas Corpus Resource Center
Adjunct Lecturer, UC Berkeley School of Law

Selected Publications

King, Sharese and Jacobs, Samantha. "Talk about testimony: courtroom dialogue as racialized interactions" Linguistics Vanguard, vol. 10, no. s3, 2024, pp. 265-272.