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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 March 03, 2019 21 Comments
Elizabeth Warren's unjustifiable claim to be Native American for employment purposes continues to frame the narrative of her presidential campaign. Call it the Apology Phase. The first phase was the Family Lore Phase. That Phase lasted from late April 2012, when it was first discovered she claimed to be Native American, until the summer of 2018. Warren repeatedly insisted she was Native American based on what her family told her, and anyone who questioned her story was attacking her parents.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 02, 2019 43 Comments
During his long speech at the CPAC conference on Saturday, March 2, 2019, Donald Trump promised to sign an Executive Order requiring that all universities and college that receive federal funds to protect free speech.
“I will be signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 28, 2019 22 Comments
For several years Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin has been the subject of investigation for alleged corruption, charges he denies. There was a lot of speculation as to whether he would be indicted prior to the April 9 elections. The Israeli Attorney General just announced plans to indict Netanyahu under a procedure that could take up to a year to play out just to decide whether there will be an indictment. The Attorney General thus created all the political fallout of an indictment, without an actual indictment.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 26, 2019 51 Comments
Seven years ago George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin in lawful self-defense, as Martin beat Zimmerman to a bloody pulp Mixed Martial Arts style. Martin died of a single shot. The eyewitness and forensic evidence introduced at trial corroborated Zimmerman's account of being sucker punched in the nose, something Martin had bragged in text messages, kept from the jury, was his preferred method of starting fights. An eyewitness witnessed the beating, and the forensics were completely consistent with Zimmerman's account.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 26, 2019 22 Comments
One of the more curious opinions was handed down by the Supreme Court as part of its February 25, 2019 Order List. The Opinion was Yovino v. Rizo (pdf.)(full embed at bottom of post), arising out of the 9th Circuit. The issue was whether the vote on the case of the late Judge Stephen Reinhardt could be counted where he expressed his vote while alive, but died before the opinion was filed. The 9th Circuit said sure, count the vote even though Reinhardt was not alive at the time the opinion was filed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 24, 2019 24 Comments
The Daily Beast is the 342nd most trafficked website in the U.S., out of tens of thousands, according to Alexa.com. Under Editor-in-Chief Noah Shachtman, The Daily Beast has aggressively joined the anti-Trump "Scoop" wars, sometimes with actual reporting, other times in Gawker-style clickbait, leading Recode to ask last November, Is the Daily Beast the new Gawker?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 23, 2019 34 Comments
There has been a concerted effort to portray Amy Klobuchar as a brutal and mean boss who treated her staff poorly. This has the smell of a classic oppo dump, using the media as accomplices. (In case you didn't know, reporters are lazy, and if someone can spoon-feed them some oppo research, they'll run with it with their own 'investigation' as cover.)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 21, 2019 8 Comments
On February 21, 1969, a bomb planted by Rasmea Odeh and her co-conspirators from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine exploded in the SuperSol supermarket in Jerusalem, killing Hebrew University students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. A second explosive, timed to explode when first-responders arrived, was defused before it exploded.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 21, 2019 33 Comments
We've been arguing for almost a year and a half that the Democratic field, with its angry, socialist and unlikable candidates, will end with Democrats begging and pleading for Michelle Obama to run to save the nation from four more years of Trump. Most recently I wrote how Michelle Obama’s Grammys Buzz – A reminder of the mediocrity of Democrat presidential candidates:
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