{{short description|American lawyer}} {{Distinguish|Iván Fischer}} {{Infobox person | name = Ivan S. Fisher | image_size = | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1943|08|26|mf=y}} | birth_place = New York City | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Attorney | employer = }}
'''Ivan Stephan Fisher''' (born 1943) has been a prominent New York City criminal defense attorney. He represents white-collar clients and others targeted or charged in complex federal matters. In 1980, ''The New York Times'' listed him in the top five of criminal attorneys in New York City and in a separate article described him as "one of the nation's most sought-after and highly paid criminal lawyers".<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/nyregion/ivan-fisher-defender-of-the-notorious-and-now-himself.html?pagewanted=all | work=The New York Times | first=Benjamin | last=Weiser | title=Defender of the Notorious, and Now Himself | date=January 5, 2013|url-access=limited}}</ref> ''The New Yorker'' has called him one of "Manhattan's leading attorneys".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/05/120305fa_fact_schmidle?currentPage=all|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120315164710/https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/05/120305fa_fact_schmidle?currentPage=all|archivedate=March 15, 2012|title=Disarming Viktor Bout|author=Nicholas Schmidle|magazine=The New Yorker|date=March 5, 2012|accessdate=January 3, 2022}}</ref> John Kroger, former attorney general of Oregon, described Fisher in 2008 as "one of the top defense attorneys in the nation ... and without question a brilliant trial lawyer".<ref>{{cite book|title=Convictions: A Prosecutor's Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves|author=Kroger, J.|date=2008|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=9781429939669|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NX_HQTdLHrAC|page=291|access-date=October 4, 2014|via=Google Books}}</ref> Fisher has been the recipient of many honors including being invited to address the United States Second Circuit Federal Judicial Conference.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ivanfisher.com/bio/|title=Ivan Stephan Fisher, Attorney at Law|access-date=October 4, 2014}}</ref>
==Career== Fisher attended the Horace Mann School, Syracuse University and Boston University School of Law. Early in his career he was a partner of Albert Krieger.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}
As a young lawyer, Fisher represented the writer Jack Henry Abbott in a murder trial in what many{{who|date=January 2022}} call "the trial of the decade" and was counsel for Joseph Bonanno also known as "Joey Bananas", the boss of the Bonanno crime family.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954980,00.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100521234635/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954980,00.html |title=Abbott Is Guilty|magazine=Time|date=February 1, 1982|archivedate=May 21, 2010}}</ref> Another of his clients was Marie Luisi, a senior vice president at J.Walter Thompson, amid allegations relating to the alleged theft of $30 million<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,922864,00.html|title=The Godmother|magazine=Time|date=April 12, 1982|access-date=May 8, 2024}}<br />- {{cite magazine|magazine=New York Magazine|date=March 8, 1982|issn=0028-7369|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qecCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA14|page=14|title=The Strange Case of Marie Luisi|access-date=May 8, 2024}}{</ref> and Lowell Birrell, an oil executive and financier in the largest white collar prosecution ever at the time.<ref>{{cite magazine| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,825858,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110201044857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,825858,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=February 1, 2011 |title=HIGH FINANCE: Broken, Broken, Broken | magazine=Time | date=August 3, 1959}}</ref>
Fisher also represented the Italian financier Michele Sindona, was lead counsel in the Pizza Connection Trial, the longest federal criminal trial in US history and the French Connection trial.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}
On May 15, 1974, Fisher won a landmark decision in the Court of Appeals in the 2nd Circuit, ''United States vs. Toscanino'', which in effect overruled Supreme Court rulings, through its limiting of the Ker–Frisbie doctrine, precluding American judicial review of foreign U.S. law enforcement conduct.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uniset.ca/other/cs5/500F2d267.html|title=United States v. Toscanino|publisher=United Settlement Church|access-date=October 4, 2014}}</ref> An immediate result of the decision was an order from the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to every United States embassy in the world directing all American personnel to abstain from participation in torture.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}
In recent years, Fisher secured the dismissal of the indictment alleging corruption and related offenses filed against Roy L. Schneider, M.D., the former governor of the United States Virgin Islands.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}} He also won an acquittal at the trial of Demetrios Demetrios, who was alleged to have traded illegally with "black nations".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://thetech.com/issues/115/27/pdf |title=Three Men Arrested in Scheme to Export Nuclear Material to Iraq|work=The Tech|author1=John J. Goldman|author2=William C. Rempel|agency=Los Angeles Times|volume=115|issue=27|date=June 9, 1995|page=3|accessdate=May 8, 2024}}</ref> Fisher represented the billionaire Pashtun tribal chieftain and politician Haji Ayub Afridi, whose jurisdiction covers the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan; Ayub Afridi has endured a long and complicated relationship with the United States,{{citation needed|date=May 2025}} including a prosecution brought in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CL04Df01.html |title=US turns to drug baron to rally support |work=Asia Times |author=Syed Saleem Shahzad |date= December 4, 2001 |accessdate=January 3, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011213010242/http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CL04Df01.html |archive-date=13 December 2001 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
Fisher defended Alberto Vilar, an investor and billionaire philanthropist, who was head of the asset management firm Amerindo Investment Advisors, against securities fraud charges brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/02/13/060213fa_fact_stewart |title=The Opera Lover|magazine=The New Yorker|page=108|author=|date=February 5, 2006}}</ref> Fisher is also counsel to Haji Bashir Noorzai,<ref>{{cite magazine| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1587252-8,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070212054749/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C1587252-8%2C00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=February 12, 2007 | magazine=Time | title=Warlord or Druglord?|author=Bill Powell| date=February 8, 2007|accessdate=January 3, 2022}}</ref> whose prosecution and subsequent conviction by the U.S. government raised significant issues involving United States foreign policy.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?ei=5088&en=5311a28f06cf69cd&ex=1328072400&pagewanted=print|work=The New York Times|first=James|last=Risen|authorlink=James Risen|title=An Afghan's Path From U.S. Ally to Drug Suspect|date=February 2, 2007|url-access=limited}}</ref> In 2009, Fisher represented the General Counsel of a major telecommunications company{{who|date=May 2025}} on charges of stock options backdating.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}
Fisher has frequently been profiled in major publications such as ''Time'' magazine, ''The New York Times'', ''The National Law Journal'' and the ''New York Law Journal''.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}} He lectures frequently at leading universities including Yale Law School and Columbia Law School on criminal defense and is widely known as an expert on cross examination. He is regularly called on to give legal commentary on national television.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}
In 2012, Fisher was suspended from New York federal courts for breach of fiduciary responsibility to a client.<ref>{{cite news|title=Defending the Notorious, and Now Himself|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/nyregion/ivan-fisher-defender-of-the-notorious-and-now-himself.html|work=The New York Times|date=January 5, 2013|first=Benjamin|last=Weiser|url-access=limited}}</ref> On March 14, 2013, the grievance committee of the United States District Court in Manhattan barred Fisher from practicing before that court, based on the committee's finding that Fisher had improperly kept money from a client that Fisher was supposed to use to repay a third party.<ref>{{cite news|title=Criminal Lawyer Is Barred From Working in U.S. Court|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/nyregion/ivan-fisher-barred-from-practicing-law-in-us-court-in-manhattan.html|work=The New York Times|date=March 15, 2013|first=Benjamin|last=Weiser|url-access=limited}}</ref>
On July 9, 2015, Fisher was suspended from the practice of law, and had not renewed his license as of August 2024, according to the New York State Unified Court System website.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/attorneyservices/wicket/page/DetailsPage?2|title=Name: IVAN S. FISHER|website=New York State Unified Court System|date=August 1, 2024|access-date=May 22, 2025|archive-date=June 17, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230617000305/https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/attorneyservices/wicket/page/DetailsPage?2|url-status=dead}}</ref>
== Notable clients == *Jack Henry Abbott *Alberto Vilar *Governor Roy Schneider *Norman Mailer<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/features/norman_mailer_tribute/|title=Norman Mailer – A Tribute...|publisher=Random House|date=2008|access-date=October 4, 2014}}<br />- {{Cite book|isbn=9781439150191|title=Norman Mailer: A Double Life|author=J. Michael Lennon|date= 2013 |publisher=Simon & Schuster}}</ref> *Michele Sindona *The French Connection *Pizza Connection Trial *Lowell Birrell *Haji Bashar Noorzai *Haji Ayub Afridi *Remy Ma *Joseph Bonanno *John Dickinson
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == * {{official website|http://ivanfisher.com/}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, Ivan}} Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:Lawyers from New York City Category:American criminal defense lawyers Category:Syracuse University alumni Category:Boston University School of Law alumni Category:Horace Mann School alumni