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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.

Liberal bloggers and media groups can't get the Tea Party phenomenon out of their heads. It wasn't supposed to be this way, to them. Ordinary people getting together to protest against the liberal establishment. There is a cognitive disconnect. There must be a plot; the...

Rather than worrying about news aggregators stealing its stuff, AP should worry about its credibility.A news article titled Obama Hopes to Use Dealmaking Skills Honed Abroad (run in the NY Times, which seems to be reprinting a lot of AP articles verbatim these days), makes...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a great intellect, but her interview with The New York Times on the issue of foreign law reveals a view of the role of the Court which is odd.The controversy surrounding citing foreign law and foreign judicial decisions...

At a moment in time, David Brooks wrote that "Barack Obama is not who we thought he was" based on Obama's über-liberal economic policies. It lasted about a day, and several phones calls from the White House, before Brooks backtracked and turned his column into...

Talk about the law of unintended consequences. In countries where a woman has a virtually unfettered right to choose abortion, the result is that women overwhelmingly choose to abort female fetuses.A just published study, reported in the NY Times, of Chinese population growth ties a...

The New School, which used to be called the New School for Social Research, is a New York City institution of progressive politics and social theory. The President of the New School is former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey from Nebraska. Former Navy SEAL and Medal...

Liberal radio talk-show host Ed Schultz was catapulted to fame when he was given a front row seat at Barack Obama's first presidential press conference. Apparently sensing a star in the making, and a person in favor with the White House, MSNBC hired Schultz for...

Robert Stacy McCain has the run down on the apoplectic reaction of liberals to the "tea parties" sweeping the country. His post appropriately is titled "WTF" based on this hyperventilation (via Instapundit) by someone who apparently only watches MSNBC:President Obama was elected democratically, according to...

While Obama is reaching out to moderate pirates, John Kerry is calling for hearings on pirates (ooh, I bet they're scared of congressional subpoena power).This is just another instance of Kerry betraying his matees. The pirates Kerry now attacks had endorsed Kerry for President, based...

The dispute regarding the appointment of Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, to the top legal position at the State Department is heating up with the announcement that a coalition of conservative activists is beginning to form around opposition to Harold Koh, President Obama’s...

President Barack Obama bowed down to a foreign monarch as part of his apology tour. Whatever one thinks about our relationship with the Saudis, no President has prostrated himself before a Saudi King before in a sign of subservience. The attempts to twist George Bush's...

Posted April 8, 2009 Newsweek magazine's cover proclaims The Decline and Fall of Christian America, while the article inside the cover proclaims The End of Christian America. The substance of the article doesn't really prove the headline, but the goal of whichever editor wrote the headline...

The Obama "bowing" incident is taking on a life of its own. Even those who defend Obama without question are acknowledging "the fact that Obama briefly bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia." No more denial that the event took place, only over its meaning.What...

Barack Obama is on his apology tour of Europe. There is hardly anyone to whom he hasn't apologized for American arrogance and mistakes. One thing Obama hasn't managed to do is ask the Europeans to apologize to us for:Two World Wars which resulted in the...

President Barack Obama bowed down on bended knee when meeting the King of Saudi Arabia at the G-20 Summit recently. The incident is on video and was widely reported except in the U.S. mainstream media. The White House spin machine has been eerily silent on...

George Bisharat is a law professor at the University of California*, Hastings College of Law. His is the son of a Palestinian father who immigrated to the U.S. several years before the creation of Israel, and an American mother. I first learned of George Bisharat when...

The left-wing group Think Progress is complaining of Conservatives Holding Up Increasing Number Of Key Obama Nominees. According to the post:Conservatives in Congress and in the media are attempting to block or delay a growing number of critical nominees for what amount to ideological witch...

A bill pending in Congress, The Cybersecurity Act of 2009, sponsored by John Rockefeller (D) and Olympia Snowe (R) attempts to deal with very real threats to the nation's cyber-infrastructure. Attacks on military, government and civilian cyber-infrastructure are all too real, and it is time...