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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 July 20, 2014 14 Comments
With Elizabeth Warren reaching cult status, and momentum growing to convince her to run for President, it's worth keeping in mind that Elizabeth Warren's career is nothing like portrayed. No, I'm not just referring to the Cherokee deal. From her legal representation for large pay of the biggest corporate interests to questions raised by other professors about her academics, there is a story behind Elizabeth Warren which is at risk of going down the memory hole. That's the main reason we created ElizabethWarrenWiki.org -- to preserve the record and the research. It's also why Twitter user @Coondawg68 has created a Storify, Liz Warren #RunLizRun on the occasion of Warrens star appearance at Netroots Nation (the left-wing blogger gathering). It is an accumulation of much of Warren's story via tweets, some of which are pugnacious, but most informative as to the historical record: The full sequence that will not require you to click through is below:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 19, 2014 19 Comments
Well here's something different. As Netroots Nation cries out for income and wealth distribution and props up the class warrior Elizabeth Warren to cult status, some careful economic analysis finds that income inequality is decreasing globally and that redistribution in the U.S. would hurt the developing world. In an Op-Ed in The NY Times, George Mason Univ. economist Tyler Cowan writes, Income Inequality Is Not Rising Globally. It's Falling:
Income inequality has surged as a political and economic issue, but the numbers don’t show that inequality is rising from a global perspective. Yes, the problem has become more acute within most individual nations, yet income inequality for the world as a whole has been falling for most of the last 20 years. It’s a fact that hasn’t been noted often enough. The finding comes from a recent investigation by Christoph Lakner, a consultant at the World Bank, and Branko Milanovic, senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. And while such a framing may sound startling at first, it should be intuitive upon reflection. The economic surges of China, India and some other nations have been among the most egalitarian developments in history....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2014 4 Comments
This is night two of the ground invasion of Gaza. It does not appear to have moved into the large Gaza City, yet. The focus has been on uncovering tunnels, of which many have been found. You can follow the video and Twitter feed below for live updates. We also will post updates at the bottom of the post. (added) Overnight there was another tunnel attack where Hamas terrorists emerged on the Israeli side of the border and were confronted. Two Israeli soldiers were killed. Also, Hamas sent a donkey loaded with explosives towards Israeli soldiers -- the animal exploded without causing Israeli casualties. More details on all of these below. More Live Video Feeds and Live Twitter Feed below

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2014 3 Comments

Two of my radio appearances regarding Obama and the Rule of Law...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2014 9 Comments
[Council meeting now over] The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting at the request of Jordan. The live tweets are below. The main outcome is that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will leave Saturday for the Middle East to try to mediate a ceasefire. Security Council Emergency Meeting Gaza undersecretary of the UN Jeff Feltman

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2014 14 Comments
There has been a lot of vile anti-Israel propaganda in social media, going along with open anti-Semitism in social media and the streets. It's part of a pervasive dehumanization of Israeli Jews to justify Hamas' deliberate rocket fire into the middle of cities and perpetual war to destroy Israel. This tweet caught my eye because it distills how deviant the propaganda has become comparing not just Israelis, but Zionism itself, to Nazism.  The tweet shows the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, giving birth to Hitler: Twitter - @bound0479 - giving birth hitler Zionism As if that's not bad enough, note the reaction from Max Blumenthal, one of the leading anti-Israel and pro-BDS campus speakers and authors:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2014 21 Comments
John Dickerson at Slate makes the case that Elizabeth Warren Should Run for President:
If Warren joined the race, she would not win [waj - I disagree], but she would till the ground, putting grit and the smell of earth in the contest. She would energize the Democratic Party’s liberal base, which would then stir up other Democrats who seek to moderate or contain that group. Warren would challenge the Democratic Party on issues like corporate power, income inequality, and entitlements. She would be a long shot and she would have nothing to lose—which means she could keep talking about those ideas out loud. Because Clinton is close to Wall Street and finance executives and Warren is gunning for them, she has the potential to put campaign pressure on Clinton that other candidates can’t. Clinton and other candidates would be forced to explain where they stood more than if Warren weren’t in the race.
The concern, according to Dickerson:
The reason a Warren candidacy should have broad ideological appeal is that if you’re a conservative there’s something in her campaign for you, too. It will either expose Democrats for the socialist one-worlders that they are or bruise Clinton for the coming general election fight.
I think Warren should run and challenge Hillary. But that's just me. Meanwhile, if Warren does run, she's going to have to do a much better job at being responsive to reporters and speaking off the cuff rather than in pre-programmed contexts (like Senate hearings where she gets to ask but not answer the questions), via Capitol City Project: Reminds me of this:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 17, 2014 25 Comments
There are numerous reports that after heavy artillery shelling along the border, Israeli troops have entered on the ground in Gaza. Israel i24 News reports that the Prime Minister's office has authorized a ground incursion to destroy tunnels. It's not known if it is a limited incursion or something larger. It comes the same day that Hamas launched an unsuccessful attack through a tunnel near an Israeli Kibbutz. Israelii24 News has live coverage in English: More Live Video Feeds and Live Twitter Feed below As it's obviously a fluid situation subject to misinformation, we've embedded numerous news and local sources on the Twitter Feed below, so you can keep track as events develop.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 17, 2014 4 Comments
It's been a little while since we reported on Wendy Davis, and how her campaign was not going well: I had not expected national Dems to keep pouring money into the race, but apparently the small donors around the country still are forking over small donations, perhaps on the misperception that Davis has a strong chance. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Davis is matching Greg Abbott in current fundraising , but trails badly in the polls and only has 1/3 the cash on hand:
Gubernatorial rivals Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott have each raised just over $11 million since late February, but the Republican attorney general retains a huge $36 million to $13 million cash advantage over the Democratic senator from Fort Worth less than four months before the election. The fundraising reports, due with the Texas Ethics Commission by midnight Tuesday, gave each of the campaigns something to crow about. For Abbott, who raised $11.1 million between Feb. 23 and June 30, it is that his $36 million campaign funds constitutes, the campaign said, “the highest cash on hand amount ever reported by a Texas candidate.” They also touted the fact that, “Greg Abbott’s fund raising is coming from Texas: 95 percent of Abbott’s contributions came from within the state.” For the underdog Davis, the numbers also represented good news. Despite not budging in the polls so far — Abbott maintains a double-digit advantage — she continues to draw from a very large fundraising base, with many times as many givers as Abbott, which the Davis campaign likes to portray as the domain of fat-cat “insiders” who see Abbott as an investment more than a cause. The Fort Worth senator’s campaign said that in this last reporting period, Davis had had raised $11.2 million from more than 72,000 contributors; that 75 percent of the contributions were for less than $50, and the average contribution was 105.25.
Davis does have some well-heeled backers, though, as The Dallas Morning News reports, Wendy Davis draws from trial lawyers, labor and Hollywood to boost her campaign:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 17, 2014 14 Comments
The killing of four boys on a Gaza beach has generated enormous criticism of Israel. Israel itself has expressed sorrow at the killing (see Featured Image Tweet). But one fact not reported anywhere except WaPo is that the area was known to be used for rocket launching: This clip is from British news. Note how the interviewer doesn't even attempt to hide his bias. Welcome to British media, and increasingly, U.S. left-wing media. Mark Regev, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister's office, held his own and handled it well:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 17, 2014 7 Comments

On their minds....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 13 Comments
@Salondotcom was a brilliant parody account mocking Salon.com (@Salon), run by a couple of libertarian guys. The parodies were pitch perfect, making it difficult to tell if it was the real thing, or not. Apparently the parody account upset someone, because it has been kicked off Twitter. I just pulled some recent tweets from the real @Salon account linking to stories at Salon.com. Seriously, has anything changed?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 10 Comments
If you followed our coverage of the Boycott Divest and Sanction movement on campuses this past academic year, you would know that the BDS movement on campus was on the verge of violence. From confrontations with professors, to dorm storming, to vandalism, to publication of a Nazi cartoon, to disruptions of speeches and demands for Zionists to get off campus, to takeovers of student government offices, to demands for a new Intifada, to intimidation of Jewish students, to defacing pro-Israel posters, to seeking disqualification of pro-Israel students from student government, to threats from faculty at one college to boycott me, and so on. The tactic was to completely dehumanize Israeli Jews, and BDS gets support from some influential faculty in such endeavors. The campus BDS movement came unhinged this past academic year in part because of failures on campus, leading to calls for "direct action." And that was before the July 2014 Gaza conflict. Now we are witnessing a worldwide upsurge of open anti-Semitism in which BDS is part of the message, accompanied by threats and in some cases violence, including in the United States.  We already have seen  in the reaction The threatening face of anti-Israel boycotters in America. (language warning) Haaretz reports, Anti-Israel protests go viral - and violent - in U.S. and Europe:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 13 Comments
Recent fundraising filings show that Democrat challenger Martha Robertson has raised a fair amount of money in her challenge to incumbent Tom Reed in my home district NY-23. Robertson is a DCCC "red to blue" designee, so it's not surprising that money is flowing to her. But Robertson is not spending much -- which is consistent with what I've noticed, that she's all but non-existent in the media and the campaign trail. And she's still ducking the media, as noted by the host in the local radio interview I did the other day:
"We cannot get Martha Robertson to come on any, I want to underline that, any of our programs or to react to any charges made against her."
http://youtu.be/klXHl7MmndI?t=18m34s This is consistent with a pattern we have seen before, Martha Robertson’s hiding act becomes campaign issue in #NY23. When I tried to ask her questions at a public forum at Cornell, she was evasive and her handlers tried to shut me down. Laying low may not be helping Robertson. The Buffalo News reports that Robertson's campaign fundraising strength may not reflect actual competitiveness:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2014 12 Comments

From Mary: I made these bumper "stickers" today so that I can change the message around when it suits me. I based them on those silly refrigerator magnets that were so popular years ago. The magnetic material is available at most sign shops for a nominal fee....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2014 26 Comments
I know, you thought I'd been trolling you these past few months with all my writing about how Elizabeth Warren might actually run for President, and how she would crush Hillary if she did (and they both know it). But I wasn't trolling. Warren's surge in the Wisconsin delegate straw poll was noticed mostly only by us, but was a sign that there could be a groundswell of support. Despite all her present tense denials, there is no doubt in my mind that Warren is seriously considering running but waiting until Democrats demand it. Warren is a unique political talent, in ways we have been documenting since early 2012. There is no one on the political scene today who plays upon and preys upon a sense of victimization and envy as well as Warren. So it doesn't surprise me that Ready for Warren has formed, as reported at HuffPo:
An enthusiastic band of activists has launched a campaign to slow the momentum of Hillary Clinton and convince Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that she should run for president in 2016. "I think there's an opportunity for us to convince her if we're really able to make the case as to why we think she's the right person," said Erica Sagrans, who has signed on as the Ready For Warren campaign manager. The group already has a Facebook page, Twitter account and a new website with a petition encouraging Warren to run. Sagrans, who worked on President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, will be joined by political activist Billy Wimsatt, who previously founded the League of Young Voters and is going to be a senior adviser to the new group. Reached for comment, Lacey Rose, Warren's press secretary, told HuffPost, "No, Senator Warren does not support this effort."
They are not intimidated by the well-monied Ready for Hillary:
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