Jacob H. Rooksby is Dean of Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Washington, where he holds a joint appointment as a tenured Professor of Law and Professor of Education. Prior to joining Gonzaga in June 2018, Dean Rooksby was Associate Professor and Associate Dean at Duquesne University School of Law, where he taught Torts I and Torts II, among other courses. While on the faculty at Duquesne, Dean Rooksby was Of Counsel to the intellectual property (IP) practice group at Cohen & Grigsby, P.C. in Pittsburgh and served as an expert witness in IP litigation.

Dean Rooksby’s scholarship lies in two fields: IP law and higher education law. His IP legal writing has been published in Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Brooklyn Law Review, and Missouri Law Review, among other outlets. His writing on higher education law and policy has been published in Journal of Law & Education, The Review of Higher Education, Campus Legal Advisor, Academe, and Chronicle of Higher Education. He published a book with Johns Hopkins University Press in 2016, The Branding of the American Mind: How Universities Capture, Manage, and Monetize Intellectual Property and Why It Matters. He is co-author of the 6th edition of The Law of Higher Education, the leading treatise in the field, and edited The Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer, published in 2020 by Edward Elgar.

Upon earning his J.D. from the University of Virginia, Dean Rooksby joined McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Virginia, practicing in the firm’s IP litigation group and as a member of the firm’s higher education practice team. In addition to his law degree, he also holds M.Ed. (Social Foundations of Education) and Ph.D. (Higher Education) degrees from the University of Virginia. Dean Rooksby earned his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, in Hispanic Studies and Government from the College of William & Mary, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. In his free time, Dean Rooksby enjoys reading periodicals and exploring the outdoors with his wife and daughter.