Greta Jacobs

Before law school, Greta served as an undergraduate research assistant and student leader. At Northwestern, she was awarded a Student Funded Public Interest Fellowship (SFPIF), worked as a research assistant, and served as Vice President of the International Law Society. Following law school, Greta served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Bernard A. Friedman of the Eastern District of Michigan.

Greta worked internationally for nearly two decades in senior legal, risk, and regulatory compliance positions with major multinational corporations. She worked in compliance and legal risk at Citigroup and Walmart de México y Centroamérica. During her career, she led a 30-person team responsible for regulatory and compliance programs impacting a company with operational income of over $41 billion. In this capacity, she advised senior executives, mentored countless young lawyers, conducted investigations, developed and executed compliance programs, and managed complex initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, jurisdictions, and areas of law. Greta later worked as Partner at Calatrava Consultores in Mexico City before transitioning to her role at Cornell Law School. She was named to The Global Woman Leader's list of the top 10 leading women consultants for corporate Mexico. 

Greta has over two decades of coaching experience, including her time volunteering with the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network as the Chair for Mexico, interviewing applicants on behalf of the university and reporting her assessments back to the admissions office. Now as Clerkships Director at Cornell Law School, she works one-on-one with students and alumni to identify their strengths and develop strong clerkship application packets. She regularly reviews resumes, cover letters, and other materials, coaches students to prepare for interviews, and leads in-person workshops and webinars on various aspects of the legal job search. 

Greta listens carefully to each applicant's goals, experiences, and strengths, then helps translate them into a clear and compelling application. She is adept at turning a complex process with numerous moving parts into a simplified, organized strategy. Sessions with her are goal-oriented yet flexible and applicant-driven, centering on the concerns most pressing to the person in front of her so that each task is completed in a timely manner. In addition to her work with aspiring lawyers, Greta enjoys lecturing and public speaking. She has presented to university and professional audiences on topics including strategic change management, artificial intelligence and legal responsibility, unauthorized web scraping, and compliance as a business strategy.

In her spare time, Greta hikes and swims in lakes and oceans through all four seasons. She is also fluent in Spanish, proficient in Hebrew, and is knowledgeable in Japanese and Sanskrit.