Farewell, Attorney Nathan A. Fishbach
The Milwaukee legal community lost one of its most distinguished members yesterday with the untimely passing of Nathan A. Fishbach. Nathan served in the United States Attorney’s Office for thirteen years, rising to the positions of Deputy U.S. Attorney and Interim U.S. Attorney. He then moved to private practice in 1993, spending the balance of his career as a highly respected civil and white-collar litigator with Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek. Nathan specialized in complex white-collar cases with overlapping civil, criminal, and regulatory dimensions. Over the years, I had several conversations with Nathan about his practice, and I always left deeply impressed by his combination of heart-felt empathy for his clients and hard-nosed savvy about litigation tactics.
Nathan will be missed not only by his clients and coworkers, but also by the wider Milwaukee legal community, where he was known as a great leader and builder. He was, for instance, the founding president of the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association. Nathan loved to bring people together, and I think he was quite proud of all the things he did that helped to make the Milwaukee legal community more genuinely a “community.” It is hard to imagine any more deserving winner of the Judge Myron L. Gordon Lifetime Achievement Award, which was bestowed on him by the EDWBA earlier this year.
Although Nathan was a graduate of Villanova Law School, we have long since claimed him as an honorary Marquette Lawyer.