George Fisher

Biography

A former Massachusetts assistant attorney general and assistant district attorney, George Fisher is one of the nation’s top scholars of criminal law and evidence. In his scholarship he explores, through meticulous archival research, the history of criminal law and criminal institutions from prisons to juries, from plea bargaining to the regulation of alcohol and drugs. His publications include an acclaimed casebook on evidence and a history of plea bargaining in America. Professor Fisher is the faculty co-director of the Criminal Prosecution Clinic at the law school and a four-time winner of the John Bingham Hurlbut Award for Excellence in Teaching at Stanford Law School. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1995, he was a clinical professor at Boston College Law School, an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and an assistant district attorney for Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Early in his career Professor Fisher clerked for Judge Stephen G. Breyer (BA ’59) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Research Interest

Clinical Education, Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Criminal Prosecution, Criminology/Criminal Law Policymaking