Ellis Jacobs

Ellis Jacobs has been a public interest attorney in the Dayton Ohio area for 30 years. He represents community organizations in telecommunications cases before the FCC and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. He has been particularly involved in efforts to provide access to computers and the internet in low-income communities. He was chair of the Ohio Community Computing Center Network, a network of neighborhood computer centers throughout Ohio. He has also represented communities working for environmental justice in cases that resulted in the clean-up of air pollution from factories, foundries, and incinerators. He is involved in efforts to ensure voting rights for all. He has received numerous awards including, the Harvard Civil Liberties – Civil Rights Law Journal award for outstanding work in the public interest, the Environmental Champion Award of the City of Dayton, and the Bantz Community Service Award of the League of Women Voters. He was a recipient, in 2001, of the Atlantic Fellowship in Public Policy which allowed him to work and study telecommunications law in Great Britain. He is the past president of the Ohio Citizen Action board of directors, and has served on many other boards. He is currently a board member of the Universal Service Administrative Company, which administers telecommunication universal service funds for the nation. Ellis has worked for the Montgomery County Fair Housing Center, the Montgomery County Public Defender Office, the City of Dayton, the Legal Aid Society of Dayton, and presently works for Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc.