Jacob Valentine

Jacob T.S. Valentine is an Associate at Arias Sanguinetti Trial Lawyers, based in the firm’s Nevada office. He represents plaintiffs in complex civil litigation, including personal injury, school abuse, civil rights, constitutional law, and other matters involving individual rights and public accountability.

Known for his analytical approach and ability to navigate technically complex issues, Jacob brings an unusual combination of engineering, business, and legal training to his practice. His engineering background taught him not to take problems at face value, but instead to break them into their component parts and identify the mechanisms and triggers driving them. His business education expanded that thinking from mechanical systems to organizations and people, while his legal training gave him another framework for examining how larger systems operate and where they fail.

Before joining Arias Sanguinetti, Jacob represented student organizations and advocacy groups in constitutional and civil rights litigation involving public institutions throughout Nevada. He previously served as a Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Nevada, where his work included police accountability, public records, and students’ rights. Earlier in his career, Jacob practiced with firms focused on social justice, open-source software, intellectual property, and data privacy. His experience across these areas exposed him to emerging and technically complex legal questions and strengthened his ability to quickly understand unfamiliar subject matter and identify the underlying legal and practical issues.

His path to law was not linear. He initially studied mechanical engineering and expected to pursue a career related to invention and design. While completing his Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Entrepreneurship and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno, a conversation about patent law introduced him to the potential intersection between his engineering background and a legal career. He entered law school expecting intellectual property to be a natural fit, but by his second year realized he was considerably more interested in civil rights and plaintiff-side advocacy. That interest became increasingly personal during law school. Jacob earned his J.D. from William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Jacob and his wife have volunteered as legal observers during protests. Experiencing being tear-gassed and witnessing arrests and other interactions has deepened his interest in constitutional rights and government accountability. It motivates his involvement with the National Lawyers Guild, first through the Boyd School of Law chapter and later the Las Vegas chapter. He is a founding member of the Las Vegas Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and serves on its Steering Committee. He is also a member of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) and Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA). Outside of the office, his creative interests include acrobatics, fire arts, woodworking, glasswork, and other hands-on creative projects.

Contact him at jacob@aswtlawyers.com