Hon. Gerald I. Fisher (Ret.) joins JAMS from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, where he began hearing cases in 2001 following his unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Before taking senior status in September 2022, Judge Fisher served in the Civil, Criminal, Domestic Violence and Probate & Tax divisions and was the presiding judge in the Probate & Tax Division from 2017 to 2019. 

Judge Fisher received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in 1972, where he was co-captain of the basketball team. After playing professional basketball in Israel for a year, Judge Fisher worked for the Arlington County, Virginia, government and then entered the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, where he graduated in 1978, having served as an editor of the law review and as a student-attorney in the criminal division of the D.C. Law Students in Court clinic.

Following law school, Judge Fisher clerked for Judge J. Walter Yeagley of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and then became a supervising attorney in the criminal division of the D.C. Law Students in Court program, where he served full time until 1984. In 1984, Judge Fisher co-founded the law firm of Fisher, Morin & Kagan-Kans (eventually Fisher & Hansen), where he specialized in complex criminal and civil litigation representing both plaintiff and defense. Since 1985, he has been an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught courses in civil and criminal trial practice, capital punishment jurisprudence and, for the past 25 years, evidence. From 2012 to 2014, he was a visiting distinguished jurist at the Peking (China) University School of Transnational Law, where he taught a course on evidence. He is a frequent lecturer on evidence law and trial practice to judges and practitioners throughout the country and has served on the faculty of Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop, Santa Clara University School of Law’s Death Penalty College and California Western School of Law’s Institute for Criminal Defense Advocacy.

In reviews of his performance as a jurist by members of the bar, Judge Fisher has been described as “smart, fair and unfailingly polite to litigants and counsel”; “one of the finest judges on the superior court bench”; and “a diligent, very astute and attentive jurist.” He has been praised for “issuing decisions and orders that are well written and well researched,” for being “a good listener who is responsive to both sides in a given case,” and for being “very capable and good at handling whatever litigants throw at him.”

Representative Matters

Adjudicated cases involving:

Business Commercial

• Tax

Estate/Probate/Trusts

• Beneficiary disputes
• Trust administration issues
• Mishandling trust and estate assets and breaches
• Undue influence and capacity
• Contested inheritance rights
• Conservatorships
• Guardianship matters and related issues

Professional Liability

• Medical malpractice

Real Property

• Purchase and sale of property
• Real estate lending and financing
• Landlord/tenant
• Real property rights
• Property management

Honors, Memberships, and Professional Activities

• Charles Fahy Distinguished Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, 2003–2004
• Lever Award (for distinguished service in public interest litigation), 2001
• Distinguished Service Award, D.C. Bar, 1989

Background and Education

• Superior Court of the District of Columbia, 2001–2022
  • Associate Judge, 2001–2022
  • Senior Judge, 2022–present
• Fisher & Hansen, 1984–2001
• Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, 1985–present
• Supervising Attorney/Consultant, D.C. Law Students in Court, 1979–1996
• Law Clerk to Judge J. Walter Yeagley, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 1978–1979
• J.D., Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, 1978
• B.A., College of William & Mary, 1972