Partners

• Paul Jacobson is Jacobson Attorneys' founder and senior partner. He started out his career as a commercial litigation attorney with Werksmans Incorporated and left to start his own practice, Jacobson Attorneys, in August 2005. On 1 August 2007 he launched a new media law and policy focus area in Jacobson Attorneys. This new emphasis draws on his experience with social media to provide an innovative service to clients involved in the new media space. If you would like to read some of Paul's thoughts about the social Web, take a look at this profile on ITWeb.

  He has worked as General Counsel for the non-profit organisation iCommons and served as a member of a sub-committee of the SA Standards sub-committee dealing with Information Technology: Document Description and Processing Languages which recently considered and rejected the proposed Office Open XML standard in South Africa. He is presently also a part-time WASPA adjudicator and considers complaints filed against mobile operators registered as WASPA members.

  Paul focuses on the intersect between social media (or "new media") and the law. He is particularly interested in open content licenses, protection of personal information and freedom of expression on the Web. He has maintained blogs since December 2004 and takes an active interest in the South African online digital community. He is also a social media fanatic and makes use of a variety of online services to interact with clients, colleagues and members of the broader online community including Twitter.

• Shirley Fodor completed her studies (BCom, LLb LLM Public International Law (Cum Laude)) at the Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg) in 2000 and articled with the late Julian Solomon in commercial litigation. Upon completion of her articles she spent two years in academia at Rhodes University and the University of the Witwatersrand, lecturing in the law of contract, the law of negotiable instruments, commercial law, company law, public international law and the law of civil procedure. She joined Mervyn Taback Incorporated and Taback and Associates in 2005 where she accepted a directorship in January 2007 until she resigned in December 2009 to join Jacobson Attorneys. Shirley is additionally qualified to practice in England and Wales.

  Shirley is well versed in all aspects of commercial law and has experience in various sectors of industry including the mining sector and fast moving consumer goods. She has been involved in numerous high profile mergers and acquisitions, BEE restructures, listings and is frequently called upon to provide opinions on various aspects of these transactions.

Consultants

• Efi Bar-on completed 2 years of practical legal training at Werksmans Attorneys, Inc. Later legal experience included near on a year at D. Mirkin, Efrima, Barak, Milstein, Bonet & Co, Advocates, in Tel-Aviv, Israel and a further number of years at Jowell, Glyn & Marais, Inc in Sandton, South Africa. Efi also worked as a contract manager (legal) at the Standard Bank of South Africa Limited where he was responsible for reviewing agreements concluded by the latter with their suppliers.

  Efi produces a range of commercial legal agreements and documents that form the foundation of many of our clients' business activites both on the Web and generally speaking including service level agreements, sponsorship agreements, leases and many more.