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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 April 16, 2009 25 Comments

The Obama administration released today four memoranda detailing the legal analysis regarding interrogation techniques, most notably involving Abu Zubaydah. There is a lot of outrage regarding the interrogation techniques approved, but those are mostly non-legal issues. Some of the techniques approved, such as grabbing the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 16, 2009 2 Comments

I attended the Tea Party in Corning, NY, yesterday. There was a good crowd in this relatively small town in western upstate NY (several hours from NY City), several hundred in total. Corning is home to Corning glass and Steuben glass. The entire region has...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 16, 2009 13 Comments

Texas Governor Rick Perry said that he doesn't think Texas should secede from the U.S. Here is Perry's quote:We got a great Union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it, but if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 15, 2009 40 Comments

Liberals love to quote Sinclair Lewis' line that "when fascism comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and carrying a cross." Lewis was wrong. We have had the flag and Christianity for over 200 years, but we have not had fascism.To the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 15, 2009 3 Comments

If you want to know what the future holds if speech becomes too regulated, take a look at an article in the Times of London, titled "Bottom line gets Dutch Courage advert banned."When I read the article, I had to check the date to make...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 14, 2009 2 Comments

Did you hear the one about the person Sarah Palin picked for Attorney General of Alaska? He defended the right of the Ku Klux Klan to express its abhorrent speech. Over at Huffington Post, blogger Sam Stein is outraged, outraged I say:Sarah Palin's choice for...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 14, 2009 30 Comments

Update: Welcome NY Times readers. Do not be alarmed. You have not landed on the set of the movie Deliverance. I just happen to have a point of view you don't hear at The Times. See my related post, I'm...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 14, 2009 0 Comments

Well, that didn't take long. The crew of the Maersk Alabama, including Captain Richard Phillips, are being warned not to give advice on attacking pirates, lest they become "Joe the Sailors." And we know what that means: Smears, caricatures, investigations, and abuse from the netroots.This...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2009 5 Comments

If ever there were poster children for the term "useful idiots," the Somali pirates would be it. They just don't know it yet.For years, Somali pirates have run amok off the east coast of Africa, taking advantage of private shipping companies, and taking various non-U.S....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2009 4 Comments

I am pleased to announce that I will be cross-blogging from time-to-time at Hot Air's The Green Room. The Green Room provides a "select" group of bloggers the opportunity gain exposure to a wider audience, and a wider audience to get exposure to bloggers...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2009 1 Comment

I'm thrilled that the Somali pirates were killed, and the Maersk ship captain is safe. The Obama administration is claiming credit for giving the go-ahead for military action. But this presents Obama with a problem.There are two choices when negotiating with hostage takers/pirates....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 12, 2009 25 Comments

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 12, 2009 0 Comments

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 12, 2009 4 Comments

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 11, 2009 5 Comments

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 11, 2009 9 Comments

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 10, 2009 1 Comment

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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 10, 2009 0 Comments

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...

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