Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Author: William A. Jacobson

Profile photo

William A. Jacobson

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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2019 22 Comments
On July 15, 2019, I spoke at the Department of Justice Summit on Combatting Anti-Semitism, on a panel regarding Anti-Semitism on Campus. My presentation was on "Intersectionality." Attorney General William Barr, in his opening statement to the Summit, specifically noted the importance of intersectional anti-Semitism:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 09, 2019 58 Comments
I've written many times about "The Flight 93 Election," the September 5, 2016, article in the Claremont Review of Books, by Michael Anton, writing at the time under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus. The thrust of the concept of the Flight 93 Election was that whatever Trump's faults, the alternative was definitively and certainly worse:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2019 74 Comments
The $11 million compensatory and $33 million punitive damage verdicts won by Gibson's Bakery and its owners against Oberlin College later were reduced to $25 million under Ohio tort reform caps. But there is an important piece left in the case, the determination by Judge John Miraldi of the amount of attorney's fees, after the jury found in the punitive damage verdict that the plaintiffs were entitled to such fees.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 06, 2019 85 Comments
Reviewing the intense public relations campaign launched by Oberlin College after the $11 million compensatory and $33 million punitive damage verdicts (later reduced to $25 million under Ohio tort reform caps), I felt an "intervention" by someone who "truly cares" about Oberlin College was needed:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 02, 2019 114 Comments
After the recent Supreme Court decision ruling that the Commerce Department had not given a sufficient explanation for a Census citizenship question, there still was a possibility that the Trump administration could pursue a new explanation. After all, the question itself was held substantively lawful, it was the process that was the problem. We covered the possibilities for a do-over in Chief Justice Roberts shot down Census citizenship question, but it’s not dead yet.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 01, 2019 107 Comments
The next phase in the Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College case is the award of attorney's fees to the Gibsons. A hearing is scheduled for July 10. Dan McGraw will be at the hearing for us, and we will preview the issues once motion papers are filed and available. In the meantime, I noticed something interesting.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2019 142 Comments
After the massive $11 million compensatory and $33 million punitive damage verdicts (later reduced to $25 million under Ohio tort reform caps) against it for defaming Gibson's Bakery and its owners, Oberlin College could have done some soul searching as to its own conduct in nearly destroying a 135-year-old family business. Indeed, the purpose of punitive damages under the law is to serve, among other things, to cause such introspection in the hope of preventing future similar wrongdoing. Yet Oberlin College did just the opposite.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 28, 2019 111 Comments
In the Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College case, the Court has entered a Judgment (pdf.)(full embed at bottom of post) calculating the damages owed by the defendants after applying the statutory tort reform caps. The total amount (inclusive of compensatory and punitive damages) is: David R. Gibson $14,000,000; Allyn W. Gibson $6,500,000; Gibson Bros. Inc. $4,549,000. The total is $25,049,000.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 27, 2019 86 Comments
In a complicated ruling, the Supreme Court substantially upheld the inclusion of a census question regarding citizenship, but procedurally held that more inquiry was needed into C0mmerce Dept. reasoning in seeking to add the question. So the bottom line is that there might be a citizenship question, but it's unclear if there is time to get it resolved under deadlines for printing census forms.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 27, 2019 10 Comments
In one of the major cases of this term, the Supreme Court has refused to provide a role for federal courts in deciding so-called partisan gerrymandering cases. That is, cases in which the federal courts pass judgment on the political process that gave rise to sometimes unfair districts benefitting one party or another. It was a straight 5-4 conservative-liberal split.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 27, 2019 44 Comments
Oberlin College has been on a crisis management public relations campaign to create a narrative that it is the victim in the Gibson's Bakery case because it was held liable for student speech. In a series of scripted public statements, Oberlin College's president Carmen Twillie Ambar has asserted that "this is a First Amendment case about whether whether an institution can be held liable for the speech of its students. And the actions of its students. And I think it’s important whether you’re a progressive or a conservative." That is, as we have noted before, a false characterization of the case.
Accessibility by WAH