Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Author: William A. Jacobson

Profile photo

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 February 11, 2014 39 Comments

I wonder who he thinks they will vote for? Let me think about that a while, ahem, tough call....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 09, 2014 18 Comments
Alana Goodman at The Washington Free Beacon has published The Hillary Papers (embed at bottom of this post). Here's Alana's summary:
The papers of Diane Blair, a political science professor Hillary Clinton described as her “closest friend” before Blair’s death in 2000, record years of candid conversations with the Clintons on issues ranging from single-payer health care to Monica Lewinsky. The archive includes correspondence, diaries, interviews, strategy memos, and contemporaneous accounts of conversations with the Clintons ranging from the mid-1970s to the turn of the millennium. Diane Blair’s husband, Jim Blair, a former chief counsel at Tyson Foods Inc. who was at the center of “Cattlegate,” a 1994 controversy involving the unusually large returns Hillary Clinton made while trading cattle futures contracts in the 1970s, donated his wife’s papers to the University of Arkansas Special Collections library in Fayetteville after her death. The full contents of the archive, which before 2010 was closed to the public, have not previously been reported on and shed new light on Clinton’s three decades in public life. The records paint a complex portrait of Hillary Clinton, revealing her to be a loyal friend, devoted mother, and a cutthroat strategist who relished revenge against her adversaries and complained in private that nobody in the White House was “tough and mean enough.”
Much of the portrayal is of the bitter, brutal, belligerent Hillary we all know. But her early support for single-payer, despite later denials, is directly relevant to the Obamacare debacle that will be an issue in the 2016 election. Again Alana summarizes:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 09, 2014 13 Comments
I was looking forward to the charity fight between George Zimmerman and rapper DMX. Legal Insurrection voters were rooting for George: Zimmerman Boxing Match Poll But it is not to be, as reported by the L.A. Times Promoter calls off DMX-George Zimmerman boxing match (h/t Hot Air):
A publicity-stunt boxing match is no more. The much hyped and even more divisive bout between DMX and acquitted Trayvon Martin killer George Zimmerman has been called off, according to the promoter. "This was the wrong person to put in the ring and define celebrity boxing," Damon Feldman said Saturday on Twitter, referring to Zimmerman. He said he was scrapping plans because "I'd rather be happy and make people happy." The DMX camp, meanwhile, was putting its own spin on the cancellation, suggesting DMX had second thoughts. "The George Zimmerman fight is canceled,” DMX spokesman Domenick Nati said in a statement Saturday. “DMX never agreed to the fight and we thank you for all of the support from DMX's fans.” The bout between the veteran rapper and Zimmerman had generated strong negative response. Many said that added attention for a controversial figure like Zimmerman was a bad idea all around.
The Daily News reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 09, 2014 28 Comments
More evidence that the Obamacare health insurance offerings are a cruel joke on the public. We already have covered how there will be few doctors willing to see the millions more Medicaid patients -- in many cases people who previously had private insurance. We've also covered how insurance companies have no choice but to hike deductibles and narrow in-network provider networks in order to keep premiums artificially low. It's all caused by Obamacare's one-size fits all philosophy, loading up so-called acceptable plans with so many things most people don't want or need that it raises the cost of insurance to unsustainable levels. The reimbursement rates are so low for hospitals that even major research hospitals like Stonybrook Medical Center on Long Island are refusing to participate in any of the state health exchange plans unless reimbursement rates are renegotiated. There is a cruel and heartless bureaucratic pox on the healthcare system, and we're just in the infancy of seeing the symptoms. The latest, from CBS News, in how in Washington State the major children's hospital in Seattle is excluded from all but two of the Obamacare plans (via Marathon Pundit): This is just the start. The first response inevitably will be a system of forced labor where doctors and other providers will be compelled by force of law to offer services through government plans under threat of license revocation or other punitive measures. And then, when the system is so screwed up it is beyond repair, single payer. Obamacare is just the gateway drug to single payer. If you don't believe me, just listen to Martha Robertson, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Jumpstart candidate in NY-23:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 07, 2014 16 Comments
Over 225 University Presidents have issued statements condeming the anti-Israel academic boycott by the American Studies Association as a threat to academic freedom and education, as have several major academic organizations such as the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Universities. Of the 80 ASA Institutional Members, at least 8 have dropped their membership and at least 11 have denied being Institutional Members in the first place. It is not an exaggeration to say that ASA has become a pariah in the academic community, and the boycott passed by a vote of less than 25% of the membership (because so few participated) has split the organization. There also has been legislative activity with regard to anti-boycott laws that is stalled because even critics of the ASA boycott are concerned with preserving university and individual academic autonomy. Nonetheless, even though stalled, the legislation does reflect a political backlash against the ASA. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly called the academic boycott part of “mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism” From the earliest days, the ASA has played victim, mistaking harsh criticism of its boycott as an infringement of its academic freedom.  ASA's incoming President, NYU Prof. Lisa Duggan, also has accused one critic, an author at Forbes, of homophobia.  Others have accused Israel Lobby money of being behind the backlash. All the while, ASA as an organization has sought to put on a happy face, as if none of this troubles them and all is well. But there are significant signs that the backlash is being felt at ASA. First, the ASA activism caucus issued an urgent request to BDS supporters to join the organization to increase individual memberships. Next, ASA has increaed the activity of its non-profit legal advisers to speak out on the subject, defending ASA's boycott. Today I received an Open Letter to college and universities signed by the leftist National Lawyers Guild and other anti-Israel groups and individuals making inflammatory accusations that the Universities that have spoken out against the ASA boycott are engaged in "McCarthy" like witch hunts and are themselves abusing academic freedom by speaking out.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 07, 2014 29 Comments

Repeat "Blame Bush" ad infinitum -- it works!...

Accessibility by WAH