Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 29, 2009 8 Comments

Will Newsweek ever stop trying to get attention by declaring things coming to an end?First it was the end of Christian America. Then the end of the recession. Now the end of monogamy as the basis for socially acceptable relationships, in a lead article captioned:Only...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 29, 2009 2 Comments

"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun," so said Noel Coward.*So must it seem to Barack Obama and the leading Democrats who are trying to force through a vote on health care "reform" without anyone having a fair opportunity to read the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 29, 2009 6 Comments

You know the Democrats are sensing a loss of momentum, and increasing resistance to their plans to ram through changes the American people do not want, because they have brought out the big smear that opposition to Barack Obama is racist.The most pathetic is TPM,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 28, 2009 4 Comments

Gary Margolis, Executive Director of College Mental Health Services and Associate Professor in the English Department at Middlebury College in Vermont was moved to pen a poem in support of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The poem was titled "Ajar" and was published at the Boston...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 28, 2009 28 Comments

I have not devoted much attention to the Barack Obama "Birth Certificate" conspiracy theories, because I have been bogged down debunking so many other conspiracy theories, like Andrew Sullivan's Trig Palin birth conspiracy theory and the recent theory that the Bush administration "concealed" evidence as...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 28, 2009 2 Comments

[Not sure why, but the video embed is not working, so here is the link][youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjwbc3jMj9o]--------------------------------------------Follow me on Twitter and Facebook...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2009 0 Comments

Wendy Murphy, the lawyer for Lucia Whalen, who placed the 911 call which led to the arrest of Henry Louis Gate, Jr., was interviewed tonight on the Greta Van Susteren show. Murphy, speaking for Whalen, stated that Whalen heard Gates screaming at police, but refused...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2009 1 Comment

The Cambridge Police have released the 911 call by Lucia Whalen about a possible break-in at the home of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Here is the complete audio.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg7mHjr_d0c]The interesting part of the call is the caller, Lucia Whalen, is very circumscribed in what...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2009 11 Comments

The big, breaking news of the day on the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. case is that the person who called the police to report a possible break-in, Lucia Whalen, denies that in the phone call she identified the race of the two alleged perpetrators, which...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 26, 2009 15 Comments

The global warming debate has entered the conspiracy-theory phase with this hysterical article at The Guardian: Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide.Contrary to what the global-warming alarmists claim, however, there is scientific dispute over ice measurements.What is not lacking, however,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 26, 2009 26 Comments

The proper ending to the controversy over the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. should not be an apology or a sit down for beer at the White House. This no longer is a private affair, so Prof. Gates' desire to "move on,"...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 25, 2009 9 Comments

The Congressional Budget Office once again has poked a massive hole in the Democratic health care "reform" bubble, in a report issued today.One of the key elements of the Democratic proposals is to hand over the power to make cost cuts to an unelected, unimpeachable...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 25, 2009 0 Comments

The French army finally has won a war. It managed to burn down a suburb of Marseille during artillary pracice without suffering any casualties among its troops:MILITARY bombing practice has caused one of France's worst fires for three years which continues to rage on the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 24, 2009 2 Comments

Leave it to The NY Times to create a faux historical context to absolve Barack Obama of criticism over Obama's statement that the Cambridge Police acted "stupidly" with regard to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.What faux historical context, you ask? The Times compares...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 24, 2009 2 Comments

This video, courtesy of The Right Wing Czar, is too funny. Somehow, I recall Obama channeling Seinfeld once before.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh3ln3swL7Q]--------------------------------------------Related Post:Obama Channels SeinfeldFollow me on Twitter and Facebook...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 24, 2009 15 Comments

I hope the Cambridge Police Department releases the 911 call which reported a burglary in progress at the home of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gate, Jr., and the subsequent radio calls from Sgt. James Crowley. Add to that, all witness accounts, including by the two...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 23, 2009 2 Comments

Lynn Sweet is from Chicago, where Barack Obama launched and refined his community activist/politician credentials. Sweet writes and blogs for the Chicago Sun-Times, and is one of my favorite columnists/bloggers.When Sweet asked the now-famous question to Barack Obama last night about the arrest of Henry...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 23, 2009 1 Comment

William F. Buckley, Jr. famously said:I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Reflecting on...

Accessibility by WAH