Jia Cobb is a Partner at Relman, Dane & Colfax. Jia joined the firm in 2012. She litigates a wide variety of discrimination and other civil rights cases, principally in the areas of housing, employment, and police accountability. An experienced trial lawyer, she has tried nearly 40 cases to verdict.
Jia has a particular interest in the intersection of criminal justice and civil rights litigation, advancing the firm’s police accountability practice. She has represented clients whose rights have been violated by public and private entities, or by individual police officers, including cases involving the denial of access to programs and services for incarcerated persons on the basis of disability, unconstitutional conditions of confinement, unlawful seizures, excessive force, and other misconduct. Recently, she brought a successful suit against the District of Columbia for its police department’s failure to provide adequate medical attention to individuals in custody, resulting in serious illness to her client.
In addition to police misconduct cases, Jia maintains a varied civil rights litigation docket. She has represented individuals and organizations in a diverse array of housing discrimination cases—from sexual harassment to discrimination against families with children. She also routinely represents clients in race discrimination matters. In one such case, a jury awarded her client $687,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for discriminatory termination on the basis of race.
Prior to joining the firm, Jia worked for many years as a trial attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she represented indigent clients charged with serious criminal offenses, supervised and trained new lawyers, and was a member of a specialized practice group that focused on handling complex cases involving forensic science and other expert witness testimony. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School where she was the Coordinating Editor of the Harvard Law Review and received the Heyman Fellowship, a post-graduate award for attorneys in government service.
In addition to her litigation practice, Jia frequently trains and lectures on a variety of topics related to trial preparation and advocacy. She has taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at American University Washington College of Law and for Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop. In 2016, Jia was elected by her peers of the District of Columbia Bar to serve as a member of the Criminal Law and Individual Rights Steering Committee (now Community) for a three-year term.
Hardin v. Dadlani
Justice Will Prevail: Morgan v. RSHT