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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 13, 2019 115 Comments
It had been almost a decade since the U.S. Supreme Court took a major 2nd Amendment case, something Justice Clarence Thomas lamented in a dissent from the Court's refusal to hear an appeal from a 9th Circuit decision upholding California's 10-day waiting period even for those who already owned guns legally and had gone through the permitting and background check.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 12, 2019 29 Comments
It's a little quiet here in the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Because today is Victory Day, formerly known as VJ Day, formerly known as Victory Over Japan Day. The progression of names to the generic Victory Day was to accomodate the hurt feelings of, umm, who exactly? The Japanese over whom we were victorious and who started it but couldn't finish it? Historically the day is to mark Victory Over Japan, but history is a casualty of the war waged by political correctness and hurt feelings.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 09, 2019 35 Comments
Five years ago, on August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by police officer Darren Wilson. The death, and the claim that Brown was shot with his hands up asking not to shoot, sparked riots and launched the Black Lives Matter Movement to national prominence. But the narrative was based on a lie. Brown was shot because he attacked and attempted to take Wilson's pistol. His hands weren't up, and he didn't ask not to shoot, as an Obama-Holder Justice Department investigation later proved.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 08, 2019 66 Comments
The Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College lawsuit has entered two post-trial phases: (1) Post-trial motions then appeals, and (2) public relations. As part of this jockeying, Oberlin College's president Carmen Twillie Ambar has written op-eds and given interviews in which she asserts that Oberlin College was held responsible for the speech of students. This, she argues, presents a threat to campus 1st Amendment rights because it could force universities to clamp down on student speech to avoid liability.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 08, 2019 14 Comments
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement insists it is merely "pro-Palestinian" and not anti-Semitic. There is a mountain of evidence otherwise, but sometimes there is a clarifying moment as to how calls to boycott Israel have become mainstreamed. Such a moment came on Twitter regarding India's recent moves in Kashmir, which we covered in India Revokes Special Status for Muslim-Majority Kashmir, May Open Up Region to Hindu Immigration.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 07, 2019 62 Comments
Every time I think the media-Democrat frenzy could not get any more frenzied, it gets more frenzied. How seamlessly they have transitioned from almost three years of Russia-collusion-mania to the current frenzy claiming that anyone and everyone who supports Donald Trump is a white supremacist.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 06, 2019 62 Comments
David Gibson, one of the owners of Gibson's Bakery and a plaintiff in the lawsuit that yielded almost $32 million in damages against Oberlin College, has just posted a video on Facebook announcing that he has pancreatic cancer. (h/t to multiple readers for alerting me) In the video (below), David says that Oberlin College has known about his illness for several months, and made a motion in court to keep that information away from jurors.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 04, 2019 24 Comments
The Democratic Socialists of America provide considerable energy for Democrat candidates. The label Democratic Socialist is embraced by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others. The DSA just held its annual conference, and it was pretty much what you would expect when 1000 socialists got together -- it devolved at times into self-parody.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 01, 2019 98 Comments
Everything is unfolding just as we predicted almost two years ago. We predicted that as the Democrat presidential field looked likely to yield a sure loss to Trump, Democrats would turn their lonely eyes to Michelle Obama, possibly as late as the convention if it looked like a Bernie win.
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