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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.

The NCAA has imposed the following penalties on Penn State, via WaPo: Penn State was socked with a four-year postseason ban, the loss of 40 scholarships over four years and a $60 million fine stemming from its coverup in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child...

I missed this last week as I was traveling in California.. Sarah Silverman, who goes from creating contrived outrage to contrived outrage, is a big supporter of Barack Obama and a big hater of Sheldon Adelson for funding SuperPACs aligned against Obama and Democrats. So in keeping...

From reader Judy: Saw this car in St. Charles, MO. Notice the nifty home-made bumper stickers on the very expensive car! The stickers say: “Offshore” Mitt Emily’s List Stands for Women Dressage? Give me a break! Not a Republican (Really?) Bin Laden is dead GM is alive ...

A mass murder like Aurora, Colorado, naturally grabs the headlines and attention, as it should.  A presidential recognition of the murders is appropriate. Yet more than twice as many people have been murdered this month in the president's hometown of Chicago than were killed in the Aurora shooting.  They...

From reader Charles: I have been reading your blog for some time and enjoy your bumper sticker feature. I found this one in a parking lot in Irving, Texas (I live in Fort Worth). ...

I have posted about Elizabeth Warren't Google search bar auto-fill problem both in the United States and Japan. I recently discovered the Google Insights for Search tool, which provides information gathered by Google based on search terms  As opposed to the auto-fill problem, this doesn't measure what...

down under, these tweets were posted. From a blog you should check out, Cattalaxy Files ("Australia's leading libertarian and centre-right blog"), which one of our commenters frequents. Be sure to click on embedded links. On guns: In the unarmed country the man with the illegal weapon rules bit.ly/NQfAtZ— CatallaxyFiles (@CatallaxyFiles)...

To make it perfectly clear to those of you who want to keep more than a hunk of your money, who think you are successful because you are smarter or worked harder, who think you built that business, good for you...

Give me an H, give me a U, ...

After a day of the media investigating James Holmes, the mass murderer at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, a profile is emerging of someone who did not have any overt political agenda or affiliation. Yet once again, the Tea Party was injected into the crime through...

Jay Cost doesn't see malevolent intent, just a history of oversampling Democrats consistently across a variety of polling organizations: The clear answer is: they skew Democratic. In fact, every recent registered voter poll with party spreads I could identify had a Democratic advantage that exceeded the...

A federal judge has invalidated a New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority ban on a pro-Israel, anti-Jihad poster, because the standard the MTA applied -- whether an advertisement was "demeaning" to certain groups -- was unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of content of speech...

Reaction to Obama's imitation of Elizabeth Warren is, um, building. Bristol Palin is collecting stories at her blog from people around the country, some of which are in this video The Romney campaign is out with t-shirts (h/t jimzinsocal): There's also a parody site, You didn't build that...

A gunman identified as James Holmes killed 12 people at the opening of the new Batman movie. Details still are unclear as to who he is, but ABC News already has blamed the Tea Party because there is someone with a similar name who is a...