YSU Attorney for state fills general counsel post

Holly Jacobs will be paid $102,000 a year.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University has hired an attorney with local roots to serve as its new general counsel.
Holly Jacobs, chosen from nearly 80 applicants, will be in charge of advising the university on legal matters, YSU spokesman Ron Cole said Wednesday.
Jacobs will be paid $102,000 annually. YSU has had an attorney on staff since at least the early 1990s, Cole said.
Career
A Youngstown native, Jacobs comes to YSU after more than six years at the Ohio Department of Insurance, where she served initially as an employment law attorney, then as chief in the Office of Legal Services and, finally, as assistant director of general services.
Before her insurance department job, she served as an assistant attorney general in the Ohio attorney general's office, which she joined in 1995 after having worked in two private law offices in Columbus.
At the attorney general's office, Jacobs represented state agencies and officials in employment-related litigation that involved discrimination allegations based on race, sex, age and other reasons.
She is a 1988 magna cum laude graduate of YSU, where she earned her bachelor's degree in psychology. Jacobs obtained her law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law in 1991.
Jacobs is replacing Atty. Sandra Denman. YSU announced in February that it was not renewing Denman's $91,560-a-year contract as general counsel, which expired in June.
In February, Denman was reassigned to fill the vacant post of YSU's director of environmental and occupational health and safety, a job she still holds.