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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 12, 2013 22 Comments
When it comes to Salon.com, I've always wondered if they really believe all their outlandish accusations of Tea Party and Republican racism, or it's just the niche they've carved out and click bait.  Look at me, I'm not Slate.com, I'm Salon.com. Whether it's David Sirota's rants about hoping the Boston Bombers were White Americans, Salon energizing its White Privilege Branding over the Zimmerman trial, or Joan Walsh writing that the "shutdown" (more like a scale back) is the culmination of 50 years of GOP race-baiting, do they actually believe what they write? When it comes to the "shutdown" Salon has caught a Confederate fever, and the only prescription, is more Confederate. Salon has several lead articles in recent days arguing that the Tea Party in general and the "shutdown" in particular are the fulfillment White racist Confederate dreams. By, um, Rafael Edward Cruz?  They never quite address that problem in their argument. Salon is not alone in raising the alleged rise of the Confederacy to demonize the Tea Party, but Salon has taken it to an obsessive level, once again. This would all be laughable, if it weren't so poisonous to the national political dialogue, and if so many liberals didn't actually believe this nonsense and treat it as an absolute truth (just read the comments there). (click each image for link to article, or not): Salon.com Tea Party Avenging surrender of the South Salon.com GOP confederate fantasies

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 12, 2013 43 Comments
Who could have seen this coming? Senate Republicans undercut the House proposal for a 6 week debt ceiling extension by proposing a longer extension: Senate Republicans Look To Jam Boehner Obama sided with the Senate Republicans, rejecting a short term extension.  Via Keith Koffler, Obama Reverses, Opposes Short-Term Debt Ceiling Hike:
Perhaps sensing Republican weakness, President Obama reversed himself and is pushing back against short-term debt ceiling hike, stressing in his weekly address released this morning what a bad idea it would be.
It wouldn’t be wise, as some suggest, to just kick the debt ceiling can down the road for a couple months, and flirt with a first-ever intentional default right in the middle of the holiday shopping season.
After the GOP was offfered earlier this week what I described as a cave-in by Obama – a willingness to accept a short term debt ceiling increase while negotiations Obama has previously rejected kicked in – Republicans failed to act, dithering for days and failing to forge a unified position between their House and Senate caucuses. Instead, sloppy Republican leadership allowed competing proposals to emerge from the House and Senate, with a Senate plan that would extend government financing for six months and raise the debt ceiling through January 2014. House Republicans sought to raise the debt limit until the week before Thanksgiving. As any general knows, when your opposition is divided, you win. Obama acted smartly to abet the divisions among Republicans by inviting them separately to the White House. At his meeting with GOP senators, Republicans were reduced to asking Obama what was in the House plan. What a joke. Republicans should have gotten their act together and insisted on a meeting between House and Senate GOP leaders and the president. This would have made sense unless, of course, House Speaker John Boehner was never serious about the House position to begin with . . .
Paul Ryan recognizes that the Senate Republicans undercut the House: https://twitter.com/brithume/status/389059172345864192 You know what I say? Primary them. Update: It's not as if undermining the House even got Senate Republicans anything:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 12, 2013 1 Comment

First they came for the Joker: College Student arrested for wearing “Joker” make-up to class Damn good thing they didn't wear Joker make-up at these events, or they might have been in trouble: Brown University Celebrates “Nude Week” Video – Jesse Watters Covers “Nude Week” at Brown U. New Hampshire’s...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 12, 2013 43 Comments

You know the story why this blog was started on October 12, 2008 at 5:42 p.m. Here's what the blog looked like on November 15, 2008 and for the first 2 1/2 years while we were on Google Blogger (Yikes! It's like looking at your junior high school photo): Hey, look who our...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 11, 2013 9 Comments

Ted Cruz appeared today at the Values Voters Summit. The big news was that he got heckled and gave it back. Here's the clip.  (The full video is here.) [video embed removed because causing problems, so go here to view video]...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 11, 2013 19 Comments

I followed Shirley Sherrod's lawsuit against Andrew Breitbart and Larry O'Connor over an edited video of Sherrod's speech to an NAACP chapter very carefully early on, demonstrating beyond doubt that the core of Sherrod's claim, that she was falsely portrayed in a short video Breitbart released,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 11, 2013 34 Comments

One thing you have to remember about Obamacare is that much of the financial pain, such as steep penalties, is back ended so that by the time people wake up to reality, the law has been operating for years and it's too late. Here's yet another...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 11, 2013 44 Comments
A conversation I had with myself on Twitter this morning. Just because I could. (added) Be sure to read Anne's study on how embarrassed Republicans were of the Republican Brand long before the current "shutdown," New study sheds light on why Republicans won’t call themselves Republican. Also available on Storify. https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/statuses/388635508047216641 https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/statuses/388635827816771584 https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/statuses/388636232642600960 https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/statuses/388636692166348800

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2013 5 Comments
NY-23, a Republican-leaning District that includes Ithaca and most of the Southern Tier, is a high profile target for national Democrats. The DCCC has it on its Jumpstart Candidate list and MoveOn.org via PPP Polling is claiming the district is competitive. (See this critique of these PPP messaging polls.  Frankly, several of the PPP questions sound more like push polling.) Yet Martha Robertson, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican Tom Reed, has a fundraising problem as to which her campaign has been on virtual lockdown. Robertson sent a fundraising letter claiming her campaign had "caught" GOP operatives trying to take down her website. That pitch, just hours before the September 30 quarterly deadline, was meant to fill what the letter claimed was a fundraising shortfall. But the campaign repeatedly has refused media requests -- including by Legal Insurrection -- for proof of the accusation. In the one statement she did give on the situation, Robertson appeared to back away from the accusation of GOP hacking, merely stating that her website operator noticed suspicious activity. But neither Robertson nor the campaign has addressed the situation directly, drawing local television coverage. Now the Reed campaign is demanding Robertson admit to the false fundraising solicitation and return the money raised. Rep. Reed Calls on Robertson to Return Money Raised
(WETM-TV) – Congressman Tom Reed is calling on Democratic Challenger Martha Robertson to give back the money she raised from a September 30th e-mail to supporters where she claimed “GOP ops” were hacking her site. In an interview with the Star Gazette, Robertson said her web manager “noticed some very, very unusual activity,” but did not say the site was hacked.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2013 25 Comments
We have noted before the extreme eliminationist rhetoric directed at Republicans and the Tea Party by the most senior Democratic politicians, who portray the House's exercise of its constitutional power of the purse as terrorism. That rhetoric has also moved into mainstream liberal publications. What was once expected only of DailyKos or crazy fringe left-wing websites, now is mainstream liberal media. Here's a partial screenshot (full here) of a Google search this morning for "Republican extortion" -- note the mainstream liberal publication that show up on the first page parroting Obama's rhetoric: Google News Search Republican Extortion 10-10-2013 915 am - partial But The Atlantic outdid just about everyone with this image on its story by Philip Bump, How Obama Can Deal with the Irate Republican Army (via Ed Driscoll h/t Instapundit): Boehner Arrest The Atlantic Smitty had it right: https://twitter.com/smitty_one_each/status/388234299646181376 As startling as the image may seem coming from a mainstream publication, consider that the source of the image was a photo of an Irish Republican Army terrorist, Colin Duffy, who was charged with the killing of British soldiers (he later was acquitted): HuffPo AP Colin Duffy Arrest Notice the photo of Colin Duffy is the exact same photo The Atlantic used as the source for the photoshop. I'm sure the author and editors at The Atlantic knew exactly what they were doing, even if most of the readers didn't pick up on the Boehner being equated to a specific accused murderer.  Bump made sure to invoke the Irish Republican Army in the text of the post:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2013 1 Comment

From Bill, spotted in Florida: Hope?  ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2013 40 Comments
One of the stranger cases. A Judge in Ohio has ruled that a man declared legally dead after he disappeared in 1994 still is legally dead. Even though the man was in court asking the judge to declare him not dead. Long-time correspondent, photographer, reporter, bumper sticker aficionado, and music impresario Danelle sent us the story, via The Courier in Findlay, Ohio:
Donald Eugene Miller Jr. walked out of Hancock County Probate Court on Monday as legally dead as ever. In 1994, the court ruled that Miller was legally dead, eight years after he disappeared from his Arcadia rental home. The same judge, Allan Davis, ruled Monday that Miller is still dead, in the eyes of the law. Miller's request for a reversal came well after the three-year legal limit for changing a death ruling, Davis said.... Miller's ex-wife, Robin Miller, had asked for the death ruling so Social Security death benefits could be paid to their two children.... She said after the court hearing that Donald Miller left the state with hefty child support bills. He was scared of a jail term, she said. He owed about $26,000 in overdue child support by 1994, she has said. Robin Miller opposed his request for a change in the death ruling, because she does not want to repay the Social Security benefits. She does not have the money, she said.... Judge Davis referred to Donald Miller's case as a "strange, strange situation." "We've got the obvious here. A man sitting in the courtroom, he appears to be in good health," Davis said.... But the three-year time limit on the death ruling is clear, Davis said. "I don't know where that leaves you, but you're still deceased as far as the law is concerned," Davis said.
Eugene Miller apparently is not happy, according to the reporter who attended court:
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