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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 September 18, 2013 6 Comments
With a news cylce measured in seconds and minutes, not even hours, there are plenty of mainstream media mistakes, as I wrote yesterday, One lesson for mass killings: Don’t trust media reports for at least 24 hours. Piers Morgan, for example, ran wild over the fact that the shooter used an AR-15, except it turned out the shooter didn't. So Morgan deleted some of his inaccurate and embarrassing tweets about the use of an AR-15 in the Navy Yard shooting.  In so doing, Morgan both deleted inaccurate information and his own political embarrassment. That makes it harder for people (like me) to address Morgan's politics on gun control -- evidence has been removed from the internet. Well, fortunately, Twitchy grabbed the screen shots before Morgan's deletion: Twitchy Morgan AR-15 deleted tweets But in many cases, someone's Twitter or blog history is important in itself. With a blog entry, one can update and correct, as Buzzfeed did yesterday, and Google Cache often (but not always) saves the original.  But with Twitter, there is no ability to change the tweet itself, only to issue a new tweet correcting the prior (Morgan has not done that, btw), and it is much harder to reconstruct deleted tweets. The same issue exists as to the NY Daily News' now infamous Cover which was sent out on Twitter, and resulted in this conversation: https://twitter.com/brithume/status/380086436835241984 https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/380312186456793088

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 18, 2013 26 Comments
A friend and LI reader, who has to remain anonymous because of his job, sent me an email last night about Marty Bodrog, who was killed in the Navy Yard shooting:
My USNA '81 classmate Marty Bodrog was killed yesterday by the douchebag at the Navy Yard. Here's the thing. The very first week of training at the Naval Academy in July 1977 during "plebe summer" we woke up at about 0600 and the second thing we did (after PT) was to go across the Severn River on boats to the Annapolis Naval Station to the shooting range, where we were all (1000 or so of us) trained by enlisted (many Vietnam veteran) Marines in how to shoot a Navy 45 caliber pistol. By the end of the week I shot expert and was awarded the Navy Expert Pistol Medal. Not everyone did that, but we were all exceptionally well trained. I have no doubt that if Marty was armed he would be alive and that douchebag would be dead. It is such a tragedy. Just thought I'd share, since no one will ever bring up anything like this.
Video report on Marty Bodrog:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 18, 2013 7 Comments

That's what this Prius driver is. From Randy: A couple of bumper stickers for you, spotted near Charlotte, NC. ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 17, 2013 33 Comments

It happens in just about every mass shooting or terrorist event.  The initial media reports are inaccurate, yet those hurried inaccuracies feed a political narrative that is hard to break even after the facts are "corrected." In the Newtown shooting, the wrong person was identified as...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 17, 2013 10 Comments
Today is the 2nd Anniversary of the start of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Our first post was a couple of weeks later, Declaration of the Occupation of Perpetual Grievance. Remember, the next, ahem, leading Democratic contender for President of the United States was the intellectual founder of Occupy Wall Street. Our Occupy Wall Street tag now has over 100 posts.  Go ahead and take a stroll down memory lane. It's really hard to find a single favorite post.  Here are the Awards for Best Occupy Wall Street Moments (plus a Special Award at the end):

5. #OccupyWallStreet Photo of the Day

Occupy Wall Street - Mark Lyon - 10-1-2011

4. Worst. #OccupyWallStreet. Advice. Ever.

Twitter - @allisonburtch - Give a shit

3. Best #OccupyWallStreet Tweet Ever

Twitter - @Cnn - bongo

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 16, 2013 4 Comments

A lot of attention is focused on Jihadist elements fighting in Syria, and the more "secular" Assad regime. The most underreported aspect of the civil war is that it's not just a civil war, it's a grand power-play by Iran to keep control of Syria as...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 15, 2013 18 Comments
Buzzfeed seems to engender pretty strong feelings all around.  Mostly the criticism was from the right during the election, but I'm seeing grumbling from the left lately as well. I cautioned last February not to underestimate BuzzFeed Politics, which is an emerging force in news and uses cats to maximum effect.  Despite my tongue-in-cheek post, 5 Signs BuzzFeed May Have Peaked, I'm not really seeing the engine slowing down.  They have a lot of dollars, very talented staff, and they have me pegged. One thing that has caught my eye recently was that Buzzfeed lured in conservative readers through its Community section.  Yes, conservative readers. It must be some kind of Sun Tzu military theory: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] (Buzzfeed: Some of our best friends are Conservative)[/caption] I first noticed that when two of the best listicles I've seen from the conservative side showed up at Buzzfeed. The first, 16 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Life Before Birth by National Right to Life on August 27, was highlighted here National Right to Life hits home run where it counts, Buzzfeed:

Buzzfeed National Right to Life 16 Things screen shot

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 15, 2013 25 Comments

Jeffrey Goldberg makes several points similar to the points I made in my post last night, The Deal: In order to remove the threat of Bashar Assad, we have to save Bashar Assad. Goldberg writes, New Syria Agreement Is a Big Victory. For Assad: A couple of...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 15, 2013 21 Comments

On Friday we asked:  Which was worse: Middlebury 9/11 flag-grabbing or Oberlin racism hoax? It arose from the actions of Anna Shireman-Grabowski, a Middlebury student, who felt compelled to destroy a 9/11 memorial on campus by trashing thousands of small American flags, each one representing a...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 15, 2013 17 Comments

James Rosen of Fox News sketched the image below while waiting for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to appear before reporters. Rosen tried to parlay it into an exclusive interview, but no luck, via AP: Then Fox News television correspondent James Rosen reached over and handed Lavrov a...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 15, 2013 19 Comments

Which are you more likely to survive? Another from Bill in the St. Petersburg area: Guns and abortion Guns may kill people but abortion definitely does...

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