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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 10, 2019 53 Comments
Author and activist Marianne Williamson is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her big campaign issue is the demand to pay reparations. The notion of paying reparations to blacks has been around for a while, but really moved to the center because of the writings of liberal darling Ta-Nehisi Coates. I addressed the multitude of problems with reparations in 2014, when Coates made a splash on the issue with an article in The Atlantic. I wrote, The dead-end Case for Reparations:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 09, 2019 53 Comments
There is no constitutional crisis regarding the House Intelligence Committee's unsuccessful attempt to get the unredacted Mueller report, including secret grand jury information, and the documents underlying the investigation. Disregard what Jerrold Nadler says about there being a constitutional crisis.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 05, 2019 14 Comments
The Palestinian rocket barrage on Israeli civilian communities continues unabated today. In all, over 500 rockets have been fired on Israeli cities and towns, causing at least four Israeli civilian deaths. Homes and the maternity ward of a hospital have been hit, among other civilian locations in Israel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are threatening to expand the rocket fire to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and even further north.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 04, 2019 31 Comments
It is with great sadness that I announce the death of Legal Insurrection reader Patricia McNaughton of Fremont, Wisconsin. Patricia passed away peacefully in the evening of April 29, 2019, surrounded by her sister and family. Patricia was a great friend of the website, and became a great friend.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 03, 2019 17 Comments
You know the story. Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandman was maligned and became the mainstream media's object of derision because he has the audacity to stand there with a smile on his face as a Native American activist banged a drum inches from Sandmann's face. He stood his ground, and for that became the poster child for white privilege in the rhetoric of the media and social justice warriors. Initial reports blamed Sandmann for being part of a mob that surrounded and tried to intimidate the drum-banger, described in the media as a "Native American Elder."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 02, 2019 94 Comments
Something has changed. Attorney General William Barr has become Public Enemy No. 1 for the Democrats and supportive mainstream media. It started with Barr's four-page summary of the Mueller Report's conclusions, which punctured the almost three year narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. The conclusion of no conspiracy or coordination, accurately summarized in the Barr letter, was verified when the full Mueller Report was released three weeks later.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 01, 2019 41 Comments
The State government in New York has become part of the #Resistance to Trump, and not just on policy issues. The law enforcement and legislative functions have been co-opted to target Trump because he is a political enemy. In the war on Trump, important norms are being broken. It's disgusting and dangerous.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 29, 2019 35 Comments
It's not like we haven't been warning about this for the ten-plus years Legal Insurrection has been in existence. We have. In posts too numerous to link, we have warned that the anti-Israel movement, including anti-Zionist and far left-wing Jews, has been so relentlessly demonizing and dehumanizing Israel that they were normalizing antisemitism.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 25, 2019 5 Comments
The so-called "Great March of Return" are the weekly riots at the Gaza-Israel border in which Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups mount operations to breach the border fence and attack Israelis under cover of civilians, including women and children. As we have documented extensively, the "children" involved often are teenage military members of terrorist groups. The terrorist groups cynically use these teenagers and also civilian "protesters" for propaganda purposes when they are injured or killed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 23, 2019 61 Comments
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on the issue of whether the Commerce Department can add a citizenship question to the Census.  Various District Courts ruled against the Trump administration, and the administration sought the unusual remedy of direct review by the Supreme Court. We previously covered the issues in our post when the Supreme Court granted direct review, Supreme Court agrees to hear Census citizenship question case.
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