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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 October 18, 2013 62 Comments

You may have heard. There's a petition at MoveOn.org, promoted by Daily Kos, to have conservative members of the House arrested for sedition. And the petition has tens of thousands of signatures, with real people feeling bold enough to put their real names on it.  Not just...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 18, 2013 34 Comments

We previously wrote about Anna Shireman-Grabowski, a Middlebury College student who, with non-student activists, removed a flag memorial on 9/11 this year remembering the victims of the World Trade Center attack, claiming solidarity with the Native American Abenaki tribe: My intention was not to cause pain...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 17, 2013 17 Comments

don't dream it's over. From Tugboat Phil: Professor, I just got my new plates in the mail. I didn't block out the letters for obvious reasons. I did erase the serial numbers from the month & year stickers. It really is my plate. Read it with the words at the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2013 29 Comments
Another conversation I had with myself on Twitter. Last time it was about The Republican Brand.  This time it's about the lunacy of Republicans -- stoked by the media -- panicking over polling last week showing Republicans dropping like a stone into a mountain crevice. Today Pew released its polling, and it found essentially no change in Republican favorability over the past year. Democrats poll better in terms of favorability, but that's been the case for a long time. Republicans actually are in a slightly better position today than a year out from the 2010 Republican landslide, and are rated better in terms of handling the economy and running government. I don't say Pew knows any better than the other pollsters, or vice versa, but that's the point.  Do what's right, and worry about the 2014 polls closer to November 2014.  For God's sake, Republicans, stop acting like bouncing Super Balls based on the latest polling. First some Pew charts:

Pew Party Favorability 10-15-2013 full

Pew Mid Term Advantage 10-15-2013

Pew More Extreme 10-15-2013

Now my conversation with myself on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/390187871061016576 https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/390188126896807937

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2013 16 Comments

Yesterday. I'm on vacation at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Thought you'd like this: the Park Service has closed the Wright Brothers Memorial. I took photos from my iPhone this morning. The cars parked out in front are not Park Service cars; they are people who hopped...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 14, 2013 13 Comments

We have featured Pallywood here many times, the Palestinian industry producing everything from outright video hoaxes to mere gross exaggerations all in the name of demonizing Israel. But there is an even more pernicious western media version of Pallywood, the outright bias and misleading characterization of...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 14, 2013 27 Comments

From R: Spotted in Wauwatosa, inner ring suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "Capitalism is Plunderful" says the owner of a Prius. Keep up the good work!...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 13, 2013 24 Comments

We ran this over at College Insurrection last week, but I think it's worth running again an excerpt from Hen Mazzig, An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake up! As a young Israeli who had just completed five years of service in the IDF, I looked...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 13, 2013 8 Comments

Dewey. He returned to Detroit last winter. and he is updating his Win The Future Theater for the shutdown scale-back with Episode 8: Shelter in Place: Cody and Skylar shelter in place in their Seattle condo on Government Shutdown Day 12. They are out of food and Trojans. ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 13, 2013 53 Comments
(Live Twitter embed at bottom of post) AP via WaPo reports:
A crowd of people has converged on the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, pushing through barriers to protest the memorial’s closing under the government shutdown. WTOP Radio (http://bit.ly/GXQKGV ) reports Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who gathered Sunday morning, along with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Cruz says President Barack Obama is using veterans as pawns in the government shutdown. The memorial has become a symbol of the bitter fight between Democrats and Republicans over who is at fault since the shutdown began. On Sunday morning, a protest by truckers converged with a veterans march at the World War II Memorial. Participants cut the links between metal barriers at the National Park Service property and pushed them aside.
Photo stream here https://twitter.com/robertcostaNRO/status/389445415751254016 https://twitter.com/robertcostaNRO/status/389449108265517056 https://twitter.com/KatiePavlich/status/389467104833200128

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 13, 2013 22 Comments

There was one singularly most important aspect of the Obamacare computer problems detailed in this NY Times article, From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal. Not this: In March, Henry Chao, the chief digital architect for the Obama administration’s new online insurance marketplace, told industry...

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