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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 09, 2014 39 Comments
In (speaks for itself) I presented the video of Emily Lett promoting her abortion. The video is embedded again at the bottom of this post. I used this screen cap to reflect what I saw as the flippant attitude. http://youtu.be/OxPUKV-WlKw But there was another aspect I thought about but didn't write about. It's reflected in the featured image. And it is captured by Elizabeth Scalia at The Anchoress, sent to me by reader Mike:
If you let yourself become distracted by what is coming from her mouth, you miss all that is revealed in her face, which tells the whole, and very different story. A month after the abortion — with the dramatic change in hairstyle that so many women effect when emotions are high and they need to feel in control of something — watch Emily, then. The light is gone from her eyes. The seeming disconnect between pc-fed head and instinctive heart is laid out in breathtaking and stark incongruity, even down to the shadows, the blue note, the lack of energy. Devastating. Cognizant of it or not, she is a mother in grief.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2014 15 Comments
In a post last night on the continuing legal saga of the Wisconsin anti-conervative "John Doe" probe, we noted that Appeals Ct stays injunction against Wisconsin “John Doe” anti-conservative probe
Last night we noted Fed District Court enjoins Wisconsin “John Doe” anti-conservative investigation. Late this afternoon the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit issued a stay of the injunction, on procedural grounds which leave the District Court the opportunity to reinstate the injunction. The issue for the appeal was that a “Notice of Appeal” of certain court rulings had been filed prior to the injunction being issued.  Once a Notice of Appeal is filed, it moves the case automatically to the Court of Appeals and the District Court no longer has jurisdiction, unless certain exceptions are met. So the Court of Appeal basically said the District Court Judge didn’t have the case before him anymore, and couldn’t issue the injunction.
That key exception would be if the District Court found the appeal to be frivolous. It just did, and reinstated the injunction in an Order issued today, which reads in part (full embed at bottom of post):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 08, 2014 22 Comments
Soon after the defeat of anti-Israel divestment resolutions at U. Michigan and UCLA, I began to see anti-Israel advocates single out pro-Israel students who had gone on trips to Israel sponsored by pro-Israel groups, or had received advocacy training from pro-Israel groups. These trips and advocacy training are critical because some campuses have become openly hostile to pro-Israel students as a result of "direct action" and other intimidation by relatively small but highly coordinated anti-Israel groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. Professors actively participate in demonizing pro-Israel students.     So I was not completely surprised when I learned from reader emails over the past several days that there is an attempt at UCLA to disqualify any student who received pro-Israel training or trips from being on the Student Council. Because of my trip to Vassar and follow up, I didn't have time to write it up. So I'm glad that two others have done so. Jonathan Tobin at Commentary writes, The Next Step in the Campus War on Jews:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 07, 2014 10 Comments
Last night we noted Fed District Court enjoins Wisconsin “John Doe” anti-conservative investigation. Late this afternoon the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit issued a stay of the injunction, on procedural grounds which leave the District Court the opportunity to reinstate the injunction. The issue for the appeal was that a "Notice of Appeal" of certain court rulings had been filed prior to the injunction being issued.  Once a Notice of Appeal is filed, it moves the case automatically to the Court of Appeals and the District Court no longer has jurisdiction, unless certain exceptions are met. So the Court of Appeal basically said the District Court Judge didn't have the case before him anymore, and couldn't issue the injunction. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
After 24 hours of legal maneuvering in a politically charged investigation of Gov. Scott Walker and his allies, an appeals court late Wednesday handed prosecutors a victory, preventing for now the destruction of evidence from the case. The three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago stayed U.S. District Court Rudolph Randa's preliminary injunction from Tuesday stopping the John Doe investigation, saying he had overstepped his authority. The appeals court ruling also said Randa cannot order prosecutors to destroy evidence they have collected in the five-county probe.
Here's the key part of the Appeals Court ruling:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 06, 2014 15 Comments
You can find background on the anti-conservative "John Doe" secret investigation in our prior posts. The gist of the investigation is to try to find unlawful coordination between Gov. Scott Walker's campaign and various conservative activist groups.  As part of the investigation, the subpoenas and secrecy provisions have effective frozen conservative activists out of the political process. Earlier today a federal court issued a preliminary injunction halting the investigation, as reported at Wisconsin Reporter,
The John Doe investigation into conservatives is dead. In a monumental victory for targeted conservatives, Judge Rudolph Randa on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction to stop the politically charged probe, ruling in favor of conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and his Wisconsin Club for growth. ’Keefe and the club in February filed a civil rights lawsuit against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, two of his assistant DAs, John Doe Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz, and a shadowy investigator contracted by the Government Accountability Board. “The Defendants must cease all activities related to the investigation, return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation,” wrote Randa, federal judge for the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Randa  further ordered that the plaintiffs in the civil rights case “and others” are “hereby relieved of any and every duty under Wisconsin law to cooperate further with Defendants‘ investigation.” “Any attempt to obtain compliance by any Defendant or John Doe Judge Gregory Peterson is grounds for a contempt finding by this Court,” he ordered in the 26-page ruling.
An interesting aspect of the ruling was the reliance on the Supreme Court's McCutcheon case, in holding that the investigation was an attempt to interfere with the targets first amendment rights:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 06, 2014 14 Comments
Looks like the Select Committee headed by Trey Gowdy will be Bipartisan! Politico reports, Benghazi panel to have 7 GOPers, 5 Dems:
The select committee that will probe the attacks in Benghazi will have seven Republicans and five Democrats, according to sources familiar with the GOP leadership’s plans. A resolution to create the committee will come to the floor Thursday and is expected to pass by a wide margin. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) tapped South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy to chair the panel.
And it's pretty obvious that Hillary will be a primary focus:
On  May 7, 2013 during one of the many House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings on Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy, his voice slightly shaken with emotion, had the following ringing words to say –  and for their sake, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama better have been listening: “so if anyone wants to know what difference does it make, if anyone wants to ask what difference does it make (in reference to the now infamous Hillary Clinton quote) – it always matters whether you can trust your government – and to the families of the victims – we are going to find out what happened in Benghazi and I dont give a damn who’s career is impacted – we are going to find out what happened.” Rep. Gowdy will now be able to completely fulfill that promise, and in the process, could destroy the political careers of one or both of the most powerful Democrats in America.
Rand Paul is encouraging the focus on Hillary:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 06, 2014 32 Comments
From Vanity Fair, Monica Exclusive: Monica Lewinsky Writes About Her Affair with President Clinton:
After 10 years of virtual silence (“So silent, in fact,” she writes, “that the buzz in some circles has been that the Clintons must have paid me off; why else would I have refrained from speaking out? I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth”), Lewinsky, 40, says it is time to stop “tiptoeing around my past—and other people’s futures. I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past. (What this will cost me, I will soon find out.)” ..., “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position. . . . The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor’s minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power.”
Which brings to mind this Branco cartoon:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 05, 2014 25 Comments
It wasn't planned this way. It's just a coincidence. Really. By the time you read this, I'll probably be in the car driving to Poughkeepsie, NY, where I will appear tonight at 7 p.m. to give a speech in support of Israel and academic freedom. And against the Open Letter signed by 39 Vassar faculty members -- none of whom took up my debate challenge -- who support the American Studies Association boycott of Israel. Maybe I'll play this recording of David Ben-Gurion reading the Israeli Declaration of Independence: Things have been tense lately at Vassar when it comes to Israel. While I'm not expecting "trouble," I thought you might like to see what trouble for pro-Israel speakers on campuses looks like, in the video below taken at UC Davis in February 2012:
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