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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 13, 2009 4 Comments

The TaxProf has come out with his quarterly rankings of blogs run by law professors based on annual traffic (so it's an annual ranking updated quarterly), and I'm eligible for the first time since this blog is just 1 year old. I'm pleased to debut...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 12, 2009 13 Comments

Proving the "six degress of separation" thing, the left-wing blogosphere is having the type of hissy fit they usually attribute to the right-wing blogosphere. All because an NBC reporter, John Harwood, made this comment about the gay-rights protesters in Washington who are objecting to Barack...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 12, 2009 1 Comment

Why am I still writing about the foolishness of the Nobel Peace Prize being given to Barack Obama? Maybe it's because there still are people writing strained justifications for what everyone knows to be unjustifiable.Now this from John Nichols at The Nation: Obama deserved and...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 11, 2009 2 Comments

There is one supreme Democratic idiocy in the health care debate which has not received enough attention. The entire focus of the Democratic proposals -- whether HR3200, the Senate HELP Committee bill, the Baucus Concepts, or the Obama non-plan -- is to increase the cost...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2009 3 Comments

From the Preface to the 1852 Edition of Charles MacKay's Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (caps in original):IN READING THE HISTORY OF NATIONS, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 10, 2009 15 Comments

Karl Marx famously wrote that "history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, and the second as farce."Barack Obama has reversed these historical forces. With Obama, farce repeats itself as history.As a neophyte politician, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate when he...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2009 8 Comments

Received this e-mail from a "fan":Sir, just what are you doing for world peace other than complaining about the Nobel selection of Barack Obama?Well, complaining about the lunatic award of a peace prize to someone who never brought peace to anything was a pretty good...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2009 8 Comments

My initial reaction to Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize was that this was Obamamania gone wild. That's part of it.But I think there is more to it. The internationalists have tied Obama's hands. Will Obama continue ordering drones to bomb houses in Pakistan? Will...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2009 21 Comments

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. For what? Peace in Afghanistan? Peace in Iraq? Peace in the Middle East? Nope.How about peace in Chicago, Honduras, Detroit, or somewhere? Nope.What a joke. Was Chris Matthews on the committee?What an embarrassment to the Nobel Peace Prize...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2009 1 Comment

The Congressional Budget Office released its Monthly Budget Report for fiscal year 2009. Most of the news reports have focused on the deficit numbers, up to $1.4 trillion: CBO estimates that the federal budget deficit was about $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009, $950 billion...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2009 5 Comments

Ezra Klein, in his post Don't Read The Bill!, defends Max Baucus' plan to have the Senate Finance Committee vote on the Chairman's mark, which is a summary of provisions which eventually could be reduced to legislative language. Klein writes that people should not read...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2009 2 Comments

The CBO is doing its best to score the Baucus Health Care Concepts (it's not a Bill), but it really is an exercise in hypothesis and speculation, and not only because there is no actual legislation.The main problem is that the Baucus Concepts make assumptions...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2009 11 Comments

You can find an e-mail submission form for Maine Senator Olympia Snowe by clicking here.Snowe is the key vote on the Senate Finance Committee because she is the only Republican on the Committee who might vote in favor of the non-Bill markup language. If Snowe...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 07, 2009 16 Comments

The internet is alive with the sound of people analyzing the CBO's "scoring" of the Max Baucus aka Senate Finance Committee Health Care Bill. Before everyone gets too deeply into their thoughts, please keep in mind the following (get ready, all CAPS, bold, indented signifies...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 07, 2009 1 Comment

As pointed out here first, the Democratic health care restructuring plans put the IRS in the forefront of health care mandate enforcement (the Democratic HELP Committee version even gives the IRS the ability to set mandate tax rates -- why is no one talking about...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 07, 2009 4 Comments

Every once in a long while, the NY Times does something worthwhile, like re-printing one of the paintings selected by the Obamas, with the help of their decorator, to hang in the White House. (h/t National Review via HotAir)The decorator certainly knew his client....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 07, 2009 6 Comments

A slow awakening of our reality is sinking in on many fronts. One of those realities is that we have moved ever more drastically from a nation led by doers to a nation led by non-doers.Some formulate this as The Doers vs. The 'Thinkers' but...

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