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 U.N. is taking the first steps in a process which inevitably will lead to various U.N. agencies and international N.G.O.s claiming that the drone strikes ordered by the U.S. government constitute war crimes, as reported by The New York Times:A senior United Nations official...

Another rich person is building a house bigger than mine, right on the beach in my hometown, unlike my humble abode a few blocks in. Terribly unfair. The owners obviously did not know that they had made enough money two blocks from the beach.Can't we...

The Atlantic Magazine thought it would be able to speak poetic historical justice, by splashing the headline that the original reviled one, Kenneth Starr of Monica and Bill and Blue Dress and Impeachment fame, had been arrested for running a Ponzi Scheme.Oh, the deep, deep...

This was completely unexpected:Friends tell The Daily Beast that the departing senator, injured by Obama's failure to show last-minute support, may well shift right on key votes from Kagan to financial reform.Except to those of us who are attuned to the human condition:--------------------------------------------Follow me on...

I am glad to be living in a nation where we have visionary thinkers, who think up thing that never have been thought up before in the history of our nation: Military superiority is not enough to maintain U.S. strength and influence in the world,...

There is a must read article at City Journal by author Claire Berlinski, A Hidden History of Evil - Why doesn’t anyone care about the unread Soviet archives?:In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the...

Joe Sestak says "I was offered a job" by someone senior in the Obama administration in exchange for getting out of the Democratic primary against Arlen Specter."Joe heard what he wanted to hear," said Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell on Greta last night (video below):"And I...

Travel plans once again took me away from the world most of the day, but I did catch a glimpse of Dave Weigel's piece, Sarah Palin's strange, unprofessional and paranoid grudge, in which he excoriates Sarah Palin for complaining that a reporter writing a book...

Admiral Joe Sestak's political ship is sinking. Not from loose lips, but the opposite.Sestak has stated more than once that someone in the Obama administration offered him a job if he would drop out of the Democratic primary against Arlen Specter.But Sestak is sticking by...

John J. "Jack" McConnell, Jr. is the Obama administration's nominee for an open seat on the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island.As documented in my prior post, McConnell donated at least $430,000 to Democrats, including tens of thousands to the Democratic Senators who nominated him...

Literally. Mexico told Obama what to do with the national guard troops Obama just ordered to the border.Not kidding. Mexico told Obama what to do with the national guard troops Obama just ordered to the border.You may not understand. Mexico did not make a profane...

Last week I chronicled the saga of Central Falls, Rhode Island, which has filed for receivership, the state equivalent of bankruptcy, under the weight of union contracts and debt, Has First Public Sector Union Domino Fallen?Now it turns out that Central Falls has been using...

Than this: U2 Tour on Hold: Bono Recuperating from Emergency Back SurgeryI just can't think of what it is right now.--------------------------------------------Follow me on Twitter and Facebook...

The perpetually anti-Israel British newspaper The Guardian ran an article suggesting that Shimon Peres of Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in the 1970s.The article was based upon minutes of a meeting recently uncovered, which, depending upon how you interpreted the minutes,...

A bill introduced by Democratic Deputy Majority Leader Peter Palumbo in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, similar to the Arizona immigration law, will not be permitted to go to a committee hearing, much less a vote:House Speaker Gordon D. Fox decided Monday that Rep....

"Unexpected" has become the term of choice for the mainstream media to excuse the Obama administration's economic failures.Yesterday I read an article in The NY Times about something unexpected in Obamacare, and one term jumped out at me (emphasis mine):About one-third of employers subject to...

Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post profiles Chuck Todd of NBC News, NBC's Chuck Todd: White House correspondent, anchor, blogger, twitterer:"Chuckie T," as he's sometimes called, is an unabashed political junkie from Miami who fed his habit during 15 years at the news digest Hotline....

One of the difficulties of adhering to constitutional federalism is that liberals always, always want to use conservative acknowledgement of any acceptable role for the federal government as an excuse to require federal government control of just about everything. The slope is very slippery, indeed.In...