William A. Jacobson is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School.
He is a 1981 graduate of Hamilton College and a 1984 graduate of Harvard Law School. At Harvard he was Senior Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal and Director of Litigation for the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project.
Prior to joining the Cornell law faculty in 2007, Professor Jacobson had a highly successful civil litigation and arbitration practice in Providence, Rhode Island, concentrating in investment, employment, and business disputes in the securities industry, including many high profile cases reported in leading newspapers and magazines.
Professor Jacobson has argued cases in numerous federal and state courts, including the Courts of Appeal for the First, Fifth and Sixth Circuits, and the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
Professor Jacobson has a national reputation as a leading practitioner in securities arbitration. He was Treasurer, and is a former member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, a professional organization of attorneys dedicated to protecting public investors. He frequently is quoted in national media on issues related to investment fraud and investor protection, and in the past has served as one of a small number of private practice attorneys who trained new arbitrators for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Professor Jacobson is co-author of the Securities Arbitration Desk Reference (Thomson-Reuters), updated annually.
Professor Jacobson is frequently quoted in the media on political and legal topics, has authored many Op-Eds in major publications, and appears on television and radio to discuss politics and the law.
A more complete listing of Professor Jacobson’s professional background is available at the Cornell Law School website. The views expressed here are his own and not those of any employer or organization,
The best way to reach Prof. Jacobson is by e-mail here.
The jury ended its first day of deliberations in the prosecution of Paul Manafort in the Eastern District of Virginia. When this trial is over, Manafort faces a second trial on other charges in federal court in D.C.
The jury asked the judge for help understanding “reasonable doubt.” As is usual in...
The Battle of Tarawa atoll was fought on November 20-23, 1943.
Over 1000 U.S. Marines lost their lives, and over 2000 were wounded, during the 72-hour battle, earning the atoll the name “Bloody Tarawa.”
When Masterpiece Cakeshop won its case on June 4, 2018, in the U.S. Supreme Court over refusal to bake a cake celebrating a gay wedding, many people assumed it was a win for religious freedom and free speech (the right not to have government compel your speech).
The cake shop did not...
The Women’s March has been rocked by its association with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic figures almost from inception.
In February 2017, we wrote how Convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh co-organized March 8 #DayWithoutAWoman, and we followed up in January 2018, Anti-Israel activists attempt to hijack Women’s March – again:
Should Donald Trump sit down to a face-to-face interview with Robert Mueller and his team?
The answer for me has been clear for a long time: Just Say No.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a media darling. They love, love, love her. Her defeat of Joe Crowley in the NY-14 primary was to herald a new era in Democrat politics – a new, young Socialist face for the coming years.
Ignored was that Ocasio-Cortez won her primary with only about <...
Minnesota State Representative Ilhan Omar is running in the Democratic Primary to replace Keith Ellison in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.
Ellison, as you will recall, is the former Nation of Islam activist who has a long history of promoting and associating with anti-Israel groups. Ellison embodied the Red-Green alliance, far-left and Islamist...
We haven’t written much recently about Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party.
In 2015, as he was campaigning for Labour leader, we covered his sordid history, Likely British Labour leader’s creepy associations, including Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites, Jihadist preachers, BDS and Max Blumenthal, among others.
In early May 2018, we covered a lawsuit brought by a new group called Speech First challenging U. Michigan’s Bias Response Teams, Lawsuit: U. Michigan speech code and Bias Response Team “profoundly chill free speech and open discourse”.
The academic boycott of Israel, part of the broader Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, has been endorsed by approximately 1400 university and college faculty members in the U.S. alone.
So far, the only major academic association to endorse the academic boycott was the American Studies Association (December 2013), though there have...
Sharice Davids just won the Democratic primary in the KS-03 District. She defeated the Bernie-Ocasio-Cortez backed progressive candidate. She will face incumbent Republican Kevin Yoder in November.
I normally wouldn’t take interest in the race, except that Sharice is a former student of mine.
Alex Jones was deplatformed on at least four major social media platforms in a day: Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify.
The Guardian reports:
Dr. Aziz Asbar (Azbar) was assassinated in Hama, Syria, when his car exploded.
Dr. Asbar was no simple Dr., as The Jerusalem Post reports:
The Rhode Island Senate race between incumbent Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse and Republican challenger Robert Flanders is not on anyone’s radar as competitive.
It should be.
Among New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leading political enemies is the National Rifle Association.
Long before the Parkland Shooting and the national movement to pressure companies to sever ties to the NRA, the NRA was battling Cuomo’s absurd gun control legislation, the so-called SAFE Act. That legislation had to be partially rewritten...
Senator Cory Booker appeared at the Netroots 2018 conference.
Netroots is the annual gathering of far-left (“progressive”) activists. For presidential hopefuls hoping to generate buzz among the base, Netroots is a must. This year Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker were among the speakers.
The lower federal courts repeatedly have attempted to strip the executive (meaning THIS executive, because he’s Trump) of his constitutional and legislatively-granted powers.
We saw it in the Travel Order cases, which resulted ultimately in a Supreme Court rebuke of this judicial overreach.
