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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.

One of the perks of being a big time blogger (hah) is that sometimes people send me stuff for free. As in a free copy of Zev Chafets' biography of Rush Limbaugh, An Army of One.Which now occupies a hallowed place on my bookshelf next...

Why does Obama want us to be more like Europe, with its supposedly compassionate and fair welfare state?The welfare state is not compassionate; it is the height of selfishness and generational cruelty:Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are...

From the day Barack Obama took office, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have been obsessed and possessed.Everything took a back seat to passing Obamacare.And other transformative legislation and regulations intended to turn us into the failing West European economic model.Because "he recognizes his...

The Washington Post on Elena Kagan:Kagan's version of middle-age seems stuck in a time warp, back when 50-something did not mean Kim Cattrall or Sharon Stone, "Cougar Town" or "Sex and the City." --------------------------------------------Follow me on Twitter and Facebook...

When Arlen Specter switched parties in April 2009 in order to avoid a near certain loss in the Republican primary, it was not hard to guess the outcome, as I did: Specter has become a caricature of the self-interested politician who hides his need for...

Gringomask.com appears to be a real, not spoof, website in protest against the Arizona immigration bill. (h/t)The site proposes that as a protest people wear a mask featuring a blond-haired white person's face (image right). According to the website:The objective of this action is to...

This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:Joan Walsh at Salon.com sought to atone for her prior use of the race card, in this observation (h/t James Taranto) in this column, Asking the wrong question about...

You can run, but it's too late to hide anymore:President Barack Obama is trying to ride the wave of anti-incumbency by taking on an unpopular politician steeped in the partisan ways of Washington. It doesn’t matter that George W. Bush left office 16 months ago....

Can we get back to Richard Blumenthal.Remember him? The DEMOCRATIC candidate for Senate whose multiple lies about serving in Vietnam over the course of multiple years dominated an entire 24 hour news cycle.The guy whose dissembling of his own words was Clintonesque in the extreme,...

I'm glad I spent most of yesterday traveling, so that I missed much of the blogospheric tsunami regarding Rand Paul's libertarian views on the virtue of the federal government banning racial discrimination in private businesses.Where I come down on the issue is that the history...

When Democrats get on one of their rants about the dangerous effects of corporate campaign money, what they really mean is that they are against corporate campaign money which might support Republicans.The money which comes from unions to support Democrats is quite alright with them:...

There is a legal and political drama unfolding in Central Falls, Rhode Island, which has national implications for municipalities suffocating under union contracts and pension obligations, but which has received little attention outside Rhode Island.As I posted two days ago, the City of Central Falls...

Did I say "massive fail"? Isn't this like a horse designed by a committee? There have been some pretty awful Olympic mascots, but these have to be the worst, androgynous one-eyed freaks of nature.You be the judge of the design of Wenlock andMandeville:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcT52By_aE]Click here for...

"Stocks fell sharply Thursday after an unexpected spike in jobless claims and as global jitters pushed the dollar higher." (via CNBC)More flesh put on the bone by The Washington Post:New jobless claims filed last week rose by 25,000 to 471,000, the government reported moments ago,...

No one could have seen this coming. From The New York Times, Voter Insurrection Turns Mainstream, Creating New Rules (emphasis mine):But to suggest that this week’s primaries are just part of the latest revolt against incumbency, brought on by pervasive economic angst, is to...

We really are into dumb territory here, with the Democratic media machine defending Richard Blumenthal on the ground that Blumenthal didn't lie about his service "in Vietnam" every time he spoke about the subject.The story line arises because earlier in the same appearance in which...

Central Falls, a Rhode Island city which gained fame when it fired its entire High School teaching staff after unions refused concessions (the unions later agreed), now has filed for receivership, the state equivalent of bankruptcy: A Rhode Island city facing a severe financial crisis...

A Democratic state legislator in Rhode Island has filed a bill similar to the immigration law recently enacted in Arizona. As reported by The Providence Journal:State Rep. Peter Palumbo, D-District 16, Cranston, has filed a bill that largely copies a controversial Arizona law considered the...