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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 August 02, 2009 20 Comments

Various blogs have linked to [purported] nude photos of Obama's mother. I will not. It is wrong.I know that left-wing blogs would link to nude photos of Sarah Palin if they could find them, and Photoshop Sarah anyway into faux nude scenes. I know they...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 02, 2009 13 Comments

The remains of Navy Captain Scott Speicher, a pilot who has been missing since being shot down during the 1991 Gulf War, have been positively identified. The Pentagon has released a statement:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) has positively identified remains recovered in Iraq...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 01, 2009 4 Comments

The NY Times reports on whether the Treasury's "Pay Czar" will try to break the contract Citigroup has with a Phibro commodities trader, under which the trader is owed $100 million. There apparently is no dispute that absent the Treasury lending Citigroup money, and the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 31, 2009 15 Comments

Democrats are tripping over the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii and that there is a cover-up by Hawaiian state officials, among others, who falsely have issued a "certificate of live birth." On the one hand, Democrats and supportive blogs push...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 31, 2009 5 Comments

One of the joys of blogging under your real name is getting e-mails like this:Mr. Jacobson,You wrote: "While the mainstream media and left-wing blogs constantly tell us that Republicans and conservatives are dead politically, I don't think they actually believe what they are saying."Actually, some...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 31, 2009 2 Comments

The meeting at the White House yesterday between Barack Obama, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and James Crowley (with Joe Biden as the fourth wheel) has been dubbed the "Beer Summit." Perhaps a better name would be the Thanksgiving Summit (emphasis mine):Pres. Obama: "I am thankful...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2009 2 Comments

Freddie Med. Never has a phrase better summed up the danger of Democratic plans to have the federal government run the health care system.What Freddie Mac did for mortgages, Freddie Med will do for health care: A politicized system in which political correctness and social...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2009 11 Comments

Blogger and media professor Jeff Cohen argues at HuffPo that the reason Obama's health care plans are failing is that the liberal netroots are not pushing hard enough for a full-blown, nationalized, "single-payer," "one nation, one plan" style medical system: Activists must recognize the surest...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2009 6 Comments

A Democratic pollster is quoted as saying that “this is a president who needs a vacation.” Obama is making a big push on everything all the time, but the polls are moving against him.If Obama were an endurance cyclist, we'd say he was bonking or...

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...

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