Dennis Jacobs

Dennis Jacobs (born February 28, 1944) is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Born and raised in New York City, Jacobs graduated from Forest Hills High School in Forest Hills, Queens, and from Queens College of the City University of New York with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964.

He received a Master of Arts in English literature from New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science in 1965.

From 1967 to 1968, Jacobs was a lecturer in the English Department of Queens College.

In 1973, he earned his juris doctor from New York University School of Law, where he served on the Law Review and was a Pomeroy Scholar.

He was in private practice from 1973 with the New York law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, serving as a partner there from 1980 until his judicial appointment.

In 1992, President George H. W. Bush nominated Jacobs to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, vacated by Judge Wilfred Feinberg.

Jacobs was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 29, 1992, and received his commission on October 2, 1992.

In 1997, Jacobs was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to the Judicial Resources Committee of the United States Judicial Conference; Judge Jacobs chaired that committee in the years 1999-2004.

The committee has jurisdiction over personnel policy, compensation and benefits for the employees of the Third Branch, and jurisdiction over the need to create new federal judgeships in the various district and appellate courts of the United States.

As chair of that committee, Jacobs directed implementation of the employee dispute resolution program by which discrimination claims are resolved within the Third Branch, and he testified in Congress on the need to revamp benefits for the employees of the judiciary and on the need for new judgeships to deal with rising case loads.

In 2021, the Chief Justice appointed Jacobs to the Committee on Codes of Conduct, which has jurisdiction to provide advice regarding the application of the Codes of Conduct for United States Judges, Judicial Employees, and Federal Public Defender Employees, as well as Judicial Conference regulations including the Regulations on Gifts.

The committee provides confidential advice to federal judges and judicial employees regarding compliance with their ethical obligations and publishes advisory opinions to assist in the interpretation of the Codes and regulations.

Jacobs has been awarded the Learned Hand Award for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence by the Federal Bar Council (2003); the Eugene J. Keogh Award for distinguished public service by New York University (2004); the Outstanding Public Service Award by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association (2009); and the James Madison Award by the Federalist Society.

He served as Chief Judge of the Second Circuit from October 1, 2006 to August 31, 2013.

In 2006, Jacobs delivered a speech entitled "The Secret Life Of Judges" as the 2006 John F. Sonnett Memorial Lecture at Fordham University School of Law.

The subsequently published manuscript won a Green Bag Award for exemplary legal writing in the short article category.

Jacobs has also delivered two speeches expressing concern about what he views as a disconnect between the military and the legal elite.

An honorary degree of doctor of laws was conferred in 2009 by St. John's University.

The first speech was entitled “The Military and the Law Elite” and was delivered at Cornell Law School in 2009.

The second was entitled “Lawyers at War” and was delivered in Washington, D.C., in 2012 as the 10th Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture.

He assumed senior status on May 31, 2019.