Fisher v. Committee on Grievances

Appellant Ivan Stephan Fisher is a criminal defense lawyer who zealously represented clients for more than forty years. In 2007, a client, Abrahim Raphael, entrusted Fisher with $250,000 to be used to pay restitution to the victim of Raphael’s crimes. Instead, Fisher used $180,000 of the money for personal purposes. The Committee on Grievances for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Committee”) found that this conduct violated, inter alia, Disciplinary Rule of the New York Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility (“DR”) 1-102(A)(4), which provides…