Attorney Tom Jacobson left Nazi Germany in 1939 on the ship St. Louis. The trip became the subject of a book and movie called Voyage of the Damned. The St. Louis was stranded outside Cuba when Batista, the political leader, refused to honor the Jewish visa and allow passengers to disembark. The St. Louis’ captain, at great personal risk, stayed at sea rather than return the passengers to certain death at the hands of Hitler’s Germany. This allowed Jewish agencies time to convince three countries to divide the Jewish passengers aboard ship.

Jacobson went to a camp in Holland, eventually obtaining passage to the United States just prior to Germany’s invasion of Holland in November 1939. Jacobson never forgot this experience and dedicated his career in law to the struggle for people, respect and dignity and the cause of human rights.

At UW-Madison in 1960 while in law school Jacobson, at the request of Attorney Lloyd Barbee and the State NAACP, devised the plan for the first Northern sit-in dramatizing the need to enact statewide fair housing legislation. The State Capitol rotunda in Madison became the site for thousands of fair housing proponents to sit in around the clock until the State legislature was forced to vote on legislation prohibiting racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. Orville Pitts, Vel Phillips, Isaac Coggs, Governor Gaylord Nelson’s sister, numerous members of the clergy and UW-Madison Nobel Prize educators, along with thousands of Wisconsinites, participated in this historic event.

Immediately upon graduating from UW law school in 1962, Jacobson represented African-American army captain James Gregory, who had been denied access to all trailer courts in the Madison area solely for racial bias.

Arguing his first case in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Jacobson obtained a broad legal definition for what constituted a public place of accommodation under Wisconsin’s Denial of Rights law.

That same year Jacobson defended the Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council picketers in front of Marc’s Big Boy protesting lack of meaningful job opportunities for young Afro Americans.

Jacobson also successfully defended Calvin Sherrard, Jerrold Jones, and dozens of arrested pickets from the Negro American Labor Council (NALC) protesting lack of opportunity for skilled jobs at A&P food stores for Afro Americans.

In 1963 Rev. Martin Luther King led the March on Washington, and hundreds of thousands heard his stirring "I have a dream . . . " speech. In Milwaukee the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) sat in the office of County board Chairman Eugene Grobschmidt protesting his sausage maker selection to the Social Development Commission. Fred Lins, at the first meeting of this human rights agency, remarked that he could not tell Negroes apart to know which committed the crime they were accused of. John Givens was arrested in the sit-in the day after the historic Washington march. Jacobson argued in the Wisconsin Supreme Court Givens’ disorderly conduct conviction should be set aside because the statute’s overbroad definition violated the First Amendment constitutional protection of freedom of speech.
In 1964 and 1965 Jacobson was counsel for the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC) during two Milwaukee public school boycotts protesting de facto segregation, new segregated school construction sites, bussing of school children from overcrowded segregated schools to outlying white schools keeping the Afro American children intact and not integrated into the receiving schools, and general segregation policies of the Milwaukee Public School System. Jacobson represented dozens of arrested demonstrators blocking construction at McDowell public school site, including Rev. Gregg, Myles, Aukema, and Groppi.

In the middle 1960s Jacobson defended Fr. James Groppi, the commandos, and the NAACP Youth Council during the struggle against the Milwaukee Eagles Club and judges supporting the organization’s Caucasian only membership policy. The Youth Council picketed the home of baseball famous Judge Robert Cannon, protesting his membership in the racist Fraternal Order of Eagles. The daily nighttime picketing was met with counter-pickets supporting the Eagles and judges, including hooded Ku Klux Klanners making their first public Milwaukee appearance since Reconstruction. Governor Warren Knowles had to call up the Wisconsin National Guard to protect the First Amendment rights of the NAACP Youth Council to peacefully protest the Eagles’ membership policies.

During the middle 1960s Jacobson defended migrant workers in Wautoma during the harvest season. Exploiting migrants, the farmowners’ policies required workers to rent and purchase food at the camps, leaving no money from paychecks. Jesus Salas in Wisconsin organized migrant farm workers as Cesar Chavez in California mounted grape boycotts to support the United Farm Workers organization in their struggle to improve migrant conditions.

Fighting to protect workers’ paychecks, Jacobson argued his first case before the United States Supreme Court. The case, known as Sniadach v. Family Finance Corporation, is one of the most important ever to come out of Wisconsin courts. In its decision, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, supported Jacobson’s contention that Wisconsin’s wage garnishment statute was unconstitutional because it allowed money to be taken from a worker’s paycheck without giving him any notice or giving him a chance to tell his side of the story in a hearing.

In 1965 and 1966 Milwaukee became the battleground for fair housing proponents marching nightly to enact legislation prohibiting discrimination in the sale and rental of housing in the city. Fr. Groppi and Vel Phillips and the NAACP Youth Council left the Freedom House headquarters to cross the viaduct into Milwaukee’s South Side to protest lack of Common Council action to support fair housing legislation. Jacobson defended comedian Dick Gregory in Judge Christ Seraphim’s court for disorderly conduct arrest during one such housing march. In the Wisconsin Supreme Court Jacobson argued against Fr. Groppi’s arrest for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest during another housing march. The Wisconsin Change of Venue Law was attacked constitutionally, and Jacobson attempted to disqualify Eagles Judge Robert Hanson’s participation in the Groppi deliberations — Hanson had publicly stated his support of the Eagles’ Caucasian-only membership policies, and Groppi and the NAACP Youth Council demonstrations had called for judges to resign from this racist fraternal organization. Hanson said at the time, "I would rather be an Eagle than a judge." Groppi lost in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Voting in the 4-3 majority was Justice Robert Hanson. Jacobson convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to review Groppi’s loss in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Arguing before Chief Justice Warren Burger’s U.S. Supreme Court in 1969, Jacobson successfully set aside Groppi’s conviction, and a unanimous decision found Wisconsin’s Change of Venue law unconstitutional.

In the late Seventies and early Eighties Jacobson served as lead counsel on behalf of the Daniel Bell family. They sued the City of Milwaukee to recover damages for a conspiracy cover-up in the aftermath of the police murder of their relative, Daniel Bell, in 1958. A federal court jury awarded the family $1.7 million for this tragedy. The case received extensive national coverage, including an in-depth segment on 60 Minutes.

More recently, Jacobson tackled the difficult task of attempting to obtain just compensation for the surviving relatives of the victims of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. As a result of his efforts, the families received $450,000, and Jacobson donated his attorney’s fees to numerous charities.

This spirit of fighting for the individual continues today at the Law Offices of Jacobson, Schrinsky & Houck. If you are looking for an attorney who will fight for you when you are injured, and who will not be intimidated, let history be your guide.