Legal News

Fleisher to Depart Bench in March, Lawyer Says

By Brian Harris

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Leslie Fleisher will retire from the bench March 15, Fleisher's counsel Samuel C. Stretton said Monday.

Fleisher has been back to work after being out sick at the end of 2009, but she has not returned to presiding over cases, Stretton said.

Fleisher was instructed to "clean up" any outstanding opinions she has, but Fleisher has been "begging to get bench time and fulfill her ... responsibilities," Stretton said. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in December that there have been concerns about Fleisher's judicial temperament and performance on the bench.

Fleisher's courtroom in the major jury program has been filled by Judge Willis W. Berry, who returned to the bench at the beginning of the month after serving out a suspension meted out in a Court of Judicial Discipline case over Berry's operation of his real estate business out of his judicial office .

"I anticipated she would be making that decision so I was able to move Judge Berry back to criminal," said Judge D. Webster Keogh, administrative judge of trial division.

Keogh said that there would be three vacancies in the trial division with Fleisher's retirement. While the trial division can always use a full complement of judges, there is usually some kind of vacancy in the division so the three vacancies are not an unusual burden for the division, Keogh said.

Fleisher, a registered Republican, first joined the bench in 2003.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on January 25, 2010 (boomark / email).