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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 January 22, 2009 5 Comments

Dramatic increases in domestic drilling were offered as the answer to many of our economic problems last summer when gas was approaching $4 per gallon. Even Democrats were forced to recognize the need to open up some offshore drilling, and pressure was building to drill...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2009 0 Comments

Symbolism counts for a lot. In a highly symbolic move, Barack Obama's first President-to-President phone call was to Abu Mazen, a/k/a Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority:In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, [Obama]...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2009 6 Comments

I really wanted to put my disgust at Bush Derangement Syndrome behind me in approaching Obama.Yes, Obama and his supporters (i) repeatedly lied about Bush lying us into war, (ii) distorted the court rulings on Gitmo to create the false impression that Bush is a...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2009 0 Comments

On the morning of the inauguration, when attention was focused on the peaceful transition of power from George Bush to Barack Obama, the NY Times disclosed that it had taken out a loan from Mexican financier Carlos Slim on terms that would shame the worst...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2009 1 Comment

The Associated Press already has announced that Hamas is "restoring order" to Gaza, just like Hamas did in July 2007, before the Israeli invasion. The UN is decrying the "alarming" humanitarian situation, just like it did in July 2008, before the Israeli invasion. And British...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2009 0 Comments

Israel has ended its Gaza operation in the hope that Hamas has learned to change its ways. No surprise, Hamas already is attempting to rearm with even longer-range missiles via a large shipment from Iran:US and Egyptian warships were scouring the Gulf of Aden and...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2009 2 Comments

Whenever it is a slow news day, or some event (like the Obama inauguration) is sucking the air out of the media and internet, someone whose blog I follow invariably posts a picture of a pretty woman under some pretext. When the picture pops up...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2009 4 Comments

The media is all aflutter today with reports -- as headlined in the NY Times -- that "all active-duty and reserve forces meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004, the year that violence in Iraq intensified drastically...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 18, 2009 0 Comments

I recently received a renewal invoice for The Providence Journal, in the amount of $259 annually. The national and international coverage in the ProJo simply regurgitates wire service stories, but the local and state coverage is superb. ProJo investigative reporters have uncovered numerous government scandals,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 17, 2009 2 Comments

I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of Illinois politics. I've been following the Rod Blagojevich saga as an outsider looking in, from a legal perspective. One things seems clear to me, as we approach the impeachment trial: Rod Blagojevich is very good...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 17, 2009 1 Comment

The image on the home page of The New York Times website is startling. A bombed out building in Gaza with a single brightly colored child's shoe in the middle of the photo. The imagery is powerful, particularly the contrast between the blackened floor and...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 16, 2009 0 Comments

The Obama bed has made its way from a fancy antique shop in Seekonk, Massachusetts, to the White House. The 200-year-old antique tall-post tiger maple bed was resized to king for the Obamas. The bed comes from Leonards antiques, which did not reveal the price....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 16, 2009 0 Comments

Paul Krugman is the NY Times columnist who won the Nobel prize for economics work he did over a decade ago before he became a columnist. Khalid Mashal is the political leader of Hamas based in Syria, who attained his position based on terrorist work...

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

It is always a little dangerous when law professors opine on areas of law with which they have little familiarity. That is why I have stayed away from the issue of whether Israel must use "proportionate" force against Hamas. Although I suspected that the term...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 15, 2009 0 Comments

Watching live television coverage of the US Airways crash in the Hudson River today, I'm reminded of Air Florida Flight 90, which crashed into the Potomac River on January 13, 1982. The Air Florida plane hit the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., killing 78...

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