The Honorable Gerald I. Fisher

Judge Gerald I. Fisher was appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 2001 by President William Jefferson Clinton and became a senior judge in September 2022.

He was born and raised in Newport News, Virginia and attended the College of William & Mary, where he received a BA degree in history in 1972. He received his JD degree from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University in 1977, where he was an editor of the law review, served as an intern for the Center for National Policy Review, and practiced law as a student-attorney in the D.C. Law Students in Court Program.

After graduation, Judge Fisher served as a law clerk for Associate Judge J. Walter Yeagley of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. He then served for five years as a supervising attorney in the Criminal Division of the D.C. Law Students in Court Program. In 1984, Judge Fisher co-founded the law firm of Fisher, Morin & Kagan-Kans, which eventually became Fisher & Hansen, where he specialized in complex criminal and civil litigation. He remained with the firm until his appointment to the bench.

Judge Fisher has been an adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center since 1985 and has taught courses in civil and criminal trial practice, capital punishment jurisprudence, and evidence. He has also been a frequent lecturer and panelist at continuing legal education seminars and has served on the faculty of the Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop, the Santa Clara University Law School’s Death Penalty College, and the California Western Law School’s Institute for Criminal Defense Advocacy. He also was a visiting distinguished jurist at the Peking (China) University School of Transnational Law from 2012 to 2014, where he taught evidence.

While serving as an Associate Judge on the Superior Court, Judge Fisher served in the Criminal, Civil, Probate & Tax, and Domestic Violence Divisions. He was the Presiding Judge of the Probate & Tax Division 2017–18 and Presiding Judge of the Mental Health Community Court 2019–21. He has been active in providing training to judges and attorneys on the topics of evidence and criminal and civil law and procedure.