About Jakob Z. Norman
Jakob is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer. Before practicing law, he enlisted in the United States Air Force, where he met Nick Rowley on their first day of basic training. As teenagers, they began learning the values of discipline, teamwork, and integrity; principles they have carried with them into adulthood and continue to uphold in their relentless pursuit of justice.
While Jakob primarily represents individuals who have been injured, his legal career has also included representing criminal defendants in high-profile cases, including wrongful conviction matters. The common thread in each of Jakob’s cases is his deep belief in his client and his commitment to understanding the wrong that must be vindicated. Because he is selective with the cases he takes, Jakob devotes the time needed to truly know each client on a personal level. His dedication to justice has resulted in numerous record-setting settlements and verdicts in multiple states across the country.
Jakob began his legal career working in insurance defense, corporate law, and as a prosecutor. He has also served as a military prosecutor and ethics advisor for both federal and state governments. His experience on “the other side” has proven tactically invaluable in litigation and instrumental in achieving the best outcomes for his clients.
Jakob made national headlines after securing a record verdict in California on behalf of an individual poisoned by a major oil company that had knowingly contaminated the land. He and his team continue to represent individuals harmed by corporate negligence. This includes over 1,000 factory workers exposed to Trichloroethylene (TCE) at levels 300,000 times the EPA limits, and over 1,000 coal miners given dust masks that a major corporation knew were ineffective.
Jakob was appointed to the mass tort leadership team in In Re: Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3081, pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. This litigation seeks justice for thousands of individuals injured by a defective medical device.
He also serves as the Executive Director of Trial by Human, a national platform committed to training and empowering trial lawyers. Based on the foundational principles of Nick Rowley’s groundbreaking book, Jakob leads programs and workshops across the country designed to elevate the practice of trial law through hands-on, experience-based education.
While earning his degree in Psychology, Jakob conducted research on the detection of deception, designed and ran jury decision-making studies, and interned at Harvard University, contributing to the CIA’s first-ever fMRI lie detection research.
Jakob has also founded or participated in over 10 startup ventures, including one backed by legendary oil magnate T. Boone Pickens, where he served as President and CEO. With $75 million in startup funding, Jakob helped grow the company into a national and international enterprise. Under his leadership, the company received the prestigious Department of Defense Freedom Award for its support and employment of veterans.
Jakob’s military service spans over three decades in both the Air Force and Army and includes ongoing duty in the Army National Guard. He has advanced through the ranks from enlisted to his current position as a Colonel, holding assignments in transportation, medical, infantry, Judge Advocate General (JAG Corps), Air Defense Artillery, logistics, and senior command/staff positions, including Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics, Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel, and Regimental Commander. He currently serves as a Brigade Commander in the National Guard and has received a Certificate of Eligibility to become a Brigadier General.
His deployments include post-9/11 activation, Hurricane Katrina relief, the 46th Presidential Inauguration, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. While deployed, he was a member of the team that conducted the first prosecution of a detainee in coalition forces custody in Afghanistan. Jakob has served on multiple Joint Task Forces and is the recipient of the Army Combat Action Badge, Airborne Wings, Air Assault Wings, Senior Instructor Badge, and more than 24 ribbons and decorations.
In 2017, Jakob served under appointment by the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Army on one of the Department’s most complex investigations at the Pentagon. He is also an honor graduate and received a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, joining the ranks of esteemed alumni such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant III, Colin Powell, and H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
Proven verdicts and settlements at Trial Lawyers for Justice
These results are credited to Trial Lawyers for Justice. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
Carrie DeJongh, 40, of Hull, Iowa, died on June 9, 2015 after receiving iodinated contrast dye for a CT scan at Sioux Center Health, when the physician treating her gave her an antihistamine but did not immediately check her vital signs or give epinephrine. Her family sued Sioux Center Health and Dr. Roy T. Slice for negligence, and both defendants denied the allegations. A Sioux County jury in Orange City returned a $29.5 million verdict on June 13, 2018, covering DeJongh's pain and suffering before her death and loss of consortium for her husband and four children. No appeal, remittitur or reduction has turned up since.
In February 2017, a physician assistant at a UnityPoint urgent care clinic in Des Moines diagnosed Joseph Dudley with the flu despite a negative flu test, sent him home on Tamiflu, and never ordered a complete blood count. Two days later Dudley was hospitalized with bacterial meningitis caused by an undetected heart valve infection, spent eight days in a medically induced coma, and suffered a series of strokes that left him with permanent brain damage, hearing loss, vertigo and nerve damage. A Polk County jury tried the malpractice claim against physician assistant Melanie Choos and Central Iowa Hospital Corp, doing business as UnityPoint Clinic, over a week in November 2022 and returned a $27,000,000 verdict, all of it noneconomic damages. The defense moved for a new trial afterward and UnityPoint said it was weighing an appeal.
Richard J. Pellock, 80, had surgery to remove bladder cancer at UnityPoint Health Finley Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa in January 2015, and the operation succeeded. Days later he needed a second procedure for a post-surgical complication, and the nurse anesthetist handling that procedure induced anesthesia without first emptying his stomach despite signs he had a full one. Pellock aspirated, developed aspiration pneumonia and respiratory failure, and died. His widow and son sued the anesthesia group and a Dubuque County jury returned a $10 million verdict against it in September 2017, awarded entirely as loss-of-consortium damages. Defense lawyers were reported as saying they would challenge the verdict, but no Iowa appellate decision in the case has ever been published.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
