About me
Sara Jacobson is the Executive Director of Training for the Public Defender Association of Pennsylvania, where she is responsible for training public defenders across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in trial skills, criminal defense, and case theory.
Before joining the PDAP, Sara served as the Director of Trial Advocacy and an Associate Professor at Temple Law School. At Temple, she taught Trial Advocacy, Evidence and Criminal Procedure, and worked with Temple’s International LLM program in Beijing. She also helped to run Temple’s National Trial Team and co-chaired the Dean’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion. Prior to joining the Temple faculty, Sara was an Assistant Public Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she tried thousands of cases, served as the Assistant Chief of the Juvenile Unit, and taught a Criminal Defense Clinic for Penn Law. Her first job as a Public Defender was in Berks County.
In 2024 Sara was appointed by Governor Shapiro to Pennsylvania’s Indigent Defense Advisory Committee which she Chaired for it's first two years. She was appointed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Rules of Evidence Committee through October of 2023, serving as the Committee Chair and Vice-Chair. She was a member of Governor Shapiro’s Safety and Justice transition committee and is a former Chair of the Public Interest Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association and former member of its Board of Governors.
In 2023 Sara was awarded the Cesare Beccaria award by the Criminal Justice Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association. In 2022 she was awarded the Cheryl Ingram Advocate for Justice award by the Bar Association, which honors individuals who have made substantive contributions to the LGBT community in Philadelphia. That same year she was awarded the Edward D. Ohlbaum Professionalism Award by Stetson Law School.
