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Author: William A. Jacobson

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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 May 11, 2020 94 Comments
Just under two months ago, when the nation was under its first "15-days to flatten the curve," I wrote that the situation could not hold, that shutting down the economy was not a sustainable long-term plan. My estimation was that the inflection point would come sometime in May, June at the very latest. I was right. The inflection point has arrived.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 10, 2020 83 Comments
Events are moving quickly, converging on the subterfuge and subversion by Team Obama. Team Obama was behind the Flynn set up. Obama was in on it, and so were others. How deep Obama's own hands go into the spying on the Trump transition remains to be seen, but Obama's staged "leak" criticizing DOJ is a tell.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 09, 2020 24 Comments
Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College has received enormous media attention, and even *a few* posts here. Another Oberlin College case we have followed involved an expelled Oberlin College male student (we'll call him "John Doe No. 1") who alleged that the Oberlin College sexual assault hearing process was so rigged against men that it had a 100% conviction rate for cases that went to hearing, at least during the period of time relevant to that case. Now there is another lawsuit by a different student raising similar issues of an allegedly biased campus process.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2020 54 Comments
Megyn Kelly released on YouTube a 42-minute interview with Tara Reade, who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault in 1993. While Team Biden has gone after Reade for inconsistencies in her story over time, there also have been corroborating witnesses and documents that show she told others about the assault, or at least problems with Biden, at the time and in the early years after that.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 07, 2020 25 Comments
Republican Governor of Massachusetts Charlie Baker shut down all gun stores in the state as part of a supposedly health-related measure to fight the spread of Wuhan coronavirus. A group of citizens and foundations sued, filing a Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction (pdf.), seeking among other things, an Order:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 06, 2020 44 Comments
After a monumental compensatory and punitive damages jury verdict in favor of Gibson's Bakery and its owners against Oberlin College and its Dean of Students, the college launched a public relations campaign claiming, among other things, that the Gibsons really were racist even though the jury found the accusation of racial profiling false and defamatory. For those of you new to this issue, see the following posts regarding the post-trial public relations campaign:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 04, 2020 13 Comments
Joe Biden doesn't want people going through his Senate archives housed at the University of Delaware before the 2020 general election. Biden struck a deal that would keep the archives hidden from the public until two years after Biden leaves public life. But with the sexual assault allegation from Tara Reade, those archives have come into focus.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 03, 2020 20 Comments
We have followed several court cases involving bans on drive-in church services, including on in Louisville, Kentucky, and another in Greenville, Mississippi. We addressed likely litigation in the age of pandemic at our April 26, 2020, live event, Constitutional Rights in the Age of Government Overreach. To the extent there is a pattern emerging, it is that the state cannot bar religious services where CDC social distancing and related precautions are followed, if the state also allows drive-up and drive-through practices for secular institutions like fast food and liquor stores.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 01, 2020 11 Comments
Every year for the past several years we have reported on the Gallup polling on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. What that polling shows is a consistent and long-term American support for Israel when given the binary choice of supporting Israel or Palestinians.
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