Image 01 Image 03

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.

The President of Trinity College in Connecticut is one of over 50 University Presidents who have issued a very strong statement rejecting the academic boycott of Israel. The Trinity statement consisted of a letter to the President of the American Studies Association, and reads (emphasis added): To The Immediate Attention...

I've had my disagreements with Glenn Greenwald as to the term Israel Firsters and the Snowden damage to our foreign intelligence operations, but this is pretty funny. Via Mediaite, Greenwald Snarks at MSNBC: I Defend Snowden Like You Defend Obama ’24 Hours a Day’ (h/t...

Setting off an academic boycott is something like going nuclear. Once you set it off, it's hard to know where the damage to academia stops. For every action there is a reaction. That is why so many University Presidents so quickly have rejected the American Studies Association anti-Israel academic boycott. If left in place, academic BDS can and will set off a daisy chain of retaliation and demands for counter-BDS. The people behind the ASA anti-Israel academic boycott went nuclear, with great joy and high-fiving. Now there is a reaction and the boycotters are whining that the fierce pushback violates their academic freedom, and they are begging their friends for help. This same group also has threatened to sue fellow professors and administrators who criticize them (in their words "intimidate"), and erroneously characterized vigorous disagreement as harassment. These folks, who easily make false and inflammatory statements against Israel and seek to damage Israeli educational institutions and faculty, seem to feel they are immune from strenuous criticism. They haven't received half of what they have dished out to Israeli academia.  So far, no one has done unto the ASA boycotters what the ASA boycotters did unto Israeli academics. How would these anti-Israel academic boycotters feel if they were subject to boycott, divestment and sanction? We know how they would react, considering how they cannot even stand criticism. We also have an example from Australia where Prof. Jake Lynch, who very publicly would not help an Israeli researcher with a grant application as part of BDS now is complaining when his own grant application possibly (speculatively) was denied by someone who opposed BDS. Jake Lynch is a well-known BDSer:

The painting above is, or was, available on Ebay, and was catching on after George Zimmerman's famous art success. It portrays George Zimmerman as a hooded Klansman executing Trayvon. At this point, people like that artist are beyond hope. He obviously didn't watch the trial and is unfamiliar with the actual facts of the case.  Or doesn't care about the facts. Via Mediaite, Anti-Zimmerman Artwork Pulled Down by eBay as Zimmerman’s Painting Sells for $100K:
If George Zimmerman can sell his first-ever painting for more than $100,000 on eBay, why shouldn’t another artist be able to sell his anti-Zimmerman piece for a fraction of that price? On the same day that Zimmerman’s auction closed, eBay reportedly yanked a piece by artist Michael D’Antuono .... D’Antuono explained the situation on his blog:
On the same day that George Zimmerman closed his ebay auction of his painting for over $100,000, the online auctioneers removed my anti-racism painting inspired by the Zimmerman case, “A Tale Of Two Hoodies” for being “hateful or discriminatory.” While Zimmerman was allowed to capitalize on his ill-gotten notoriety, I was denied the opportunity to raise funds to help the very foundation named in honor of Zimmerman’s victim.

The Washington Post article below documents one doctor's experience with federally mandated electronic health care records. The story is familiar, as I've heard it myself from doctors. Doctors always had to spend time filling out insurance forms, but now it is so much worse. To comply with federal Medicaid and Medicare regulations (plus new Obamacare regs) not only means having the staff to comply (hence, doctors moving to larger practice groups or hospital-affiliated groups), but also more and more time spent trying to comply with electronic medical records requirements. Read the full tale below. It's how we are destroying medicine one form at a time. Here's the punch line:
When I get back to the office, I turn on the computer to write a progress note in Mr. Edgars’s electronic health record, or EHR. In addition to recording the details of our visit, I must try to meet the new federal criteria for “meaningful use,” [explanation here] criteria that have been adopted by my office with threats that I won’t get paid for my work if I don’t.... I spent more time checking boxes than talking to patients and their families. I could see twice as many patients if I could write their notes at the bedside while visiting with them. I would happily do this on paper or using an EHR that created a logical note within the same amount of time. But that is not an option.

Northwestern University Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich has been doing wonderful work exposing the myth of the Israeli "illegal" occupation of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank").  You really need to watch the videos we have posted here, The Legal Case for Israel and The historical fiction of Israel’s “occupation”. Given the war on Israel declared by the American Studies Association and two other smaller anti-Israel boycott groups, and the need to correct so much of the anti-Israel propaganda behind it, here is Prof. Kontorovich's explanation of the legal history of the region again: Now Prof. Kontorovich has come out with a challenge to the European Union to treat Israel's "occupation" the way it treats other "occupations" -- and the Europeans are none too happy. As reported by The Times of Israel, Why is this occupation different from all other occupations?:
Many Israelis have long felt that the European Union is biased against them. Two legal scholars – a former Israeli ambassador and an American Jewish international law professor — think they’ve found the perfect case to prove the claim: A new fishing deal, signed between the Europeans and Morocco, which applies beyond Morocco’s internationally recognized borders, taking in the territory of Western Sahara, even though Morocco invaded that area in 1975 and has occupied ever since.

I was getting down about all the generic "holiday" cards I was getting. Completely content-void sayings like: "Wishing you a wonderful Holiday Season" and "Seasons Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year" Wish me a Merry Christmas, damn it, even though I'm Jewish. I demand it. By failing to wish...

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind has issued the following press release: https://twitter.com/HikindDov/status/415540737820721152
December 24, 2013 HIKIND CALLS ON AG SCHNEIDERMAN TO ADDRESS ASA’S ILLEGAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL DERSHOWITZ JOINS HIKIND IN CONDEMNING ‘BIGOTED BOYCOTT’ WHICH VIOLATES NEW YORK STATE HUMAN RIGHTS LAW Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) called upon New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman today to address a violation of New York State’s Human Rights Law by the American Studies Association (ASA). On December 16, the ASA—an association of American professors with nearly 5,000 members—voted to endorse an academic boycott of Israeli colleges and universities, calling on American schools and academic groups to ban collaboration with Israeli institutions. Renowned legal expert Professor Alan M. Dershowitz joined Hikind in condemning the ASA’s bigoted boycott. “This action by the ASA is a flagrant violation of New York State’s Human Rights Law,”said Assemblyman Hikind in a letter to Schneiderman, citing section Executive Law Article 15, 296.13, which addresses unlawful discriminatory practices. “This flagrant act of discrimination on the part of the ASA singles out only one of the 192 member nations of the United Nations. It seems clear that it does so not because of Israel’s U.N.-condemned disputes with its geographical neighbors, as such disputes are common. Moreover, Curtis Marez, the group’s president and an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, admitted to the New York Timesthat ‘many nations, including Israel’s neighbors, are generally judged to have human rights records that are worse than Israel’s.’ Syria’s use of chemical weapons against its own citizens, including children, was condemned by all.

MSNBC ugly. Thanks to The Washington Free Beacon for this compilation, Ugly Stuff: ...

Pro Blogger Tip: When you're dead tired, out of ideas, almost everyone else at the blog is away or shopping...

The List of Universities rejecting academic boycott of Israel is growing rapidly.  These two announcements are significant because they involve withdrawals of Institutional Membership, not just condemnation.  This makes four universities (Penn State Harrisburg, Brandeis, Kenyon, Indiana) who are withdrawing membership, plus several others (Willamette, Hamilton,...