Barry Fisher
Barry Fisher In 1981, Judge Irving R. Kaufman, writing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York, wrote that “Tolerance of the unorthodox and unpopular is the bellwether of a society’s spiritual strength.”
Judge Kaufman was writing on a decision striking down a regulation which restricted religious solicitation on the New York State Fairgrounds. His words seem to express succinctly the view which has driven Los Angeles attorney Barry Fisher — who won the 1981 ruling and scores of others like it, both before and after — to be one of the nation’s foremost advocates for tolerance and religious rights.
Operating from the Los Angeles law firm he helped found 20 years ago, Fisher and his partners have served as counsel on nearly 300 reported state and federal cases, including a dozen before the U.S. Supreme Court. Fisher has focused his practice and his life on the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.
The National Council of Churches has called Fisher one of the “top two dozen” First Amendment experts in the nation. His clients have included gypsies, American Indians, prison inmates, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hare Krishnas and members of the Unification Church. As he has said himself, “I am drawn to minority groups which have been unjustly attacked.”
Some of the most important cases involving religious issues bear Fisher’s stamp. In 1987, he won a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court striking down a ban on soliciting at Los Angeles International Airport, concluding that the regulation went too far in limiting the right to free speech.
He was also instrumental in obtaining the passage of a watershed first amendment bill, on the books as California Civil Code section 425.14, which protects religious organizations from frivolous and vindictive punitive damages claims.
Some of his most meaningful contributions may be those which reach beyond the borders of the United States. He has been involved in drafting constitutions and other legislation for countries such as Moldova, Albania and Belarus. He has been sought after and consulted by scholars, politicians, judges and others on matters of constitutional law.
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