The story below is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
In the Roanoke Valley, the name Fishwick opens a lot of doors.
Dan Smith
John Fishwick grew up with an accomplished, well-known and respected father with whom he shares his name. He has raised two sons who have an accomplished, well-known and respected father. One might guess the die has been cast.
For John Fishwick — Senior and Junior — success was primarily about family, about recognizing and respecting the individual. That basic philosophy spilled over into two professional lives that were and have been exemplary.
The senior Fishwick had the work lives of thousands of Norfolk & Western employees in his hands on a daily basis as the CEO of the major railroad before his death. His son has shone as a lawyer. Like his father, the younger Fishwick was educated at Harvard (getting his law degree at Washington & Lee); senior Fishwick graduated at Roanoke College before Harvard, but made his mark leading a major company and believing strongly in equal rights.
The junior Fishwick has become so accomplished at explaining the meaning and result of the law that he is a semi-regular commentator on national cable television news programs. He was also selected by President Barack Obama as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, resigning when Donald Trump succeeded Obama.
While the elder Fishwick had a Roanoke elementary school named for him (former Stonewall Jackson Elementary), the younger Fishwick has worked hard to get the name of Roanoke’s federal building changed from Poff to Reuben Lawson, a civil rights lawyer. Poff was known to be racially insensitive.
Dan Smith
John Fishwick: “We encourage [our children] to go where they want to go, to find what they love.”
Both Junior and Senior concentrated on the rights of individuals. The senior Fishwick, says John Jr., was a man ahead of his time in working for the rights of women and African American employees of the railroad at a time when that was not a popular position in the South.
Growing up as the child of a celebrated person has been the topic of many studies, primarily dealing with children who don’t adjust well. But the Fishwicks belie any conclusion like that. Fishwick Senior’s wife, Blair, was a noted Roanoke artist and a woman of gentle kindness and significant influence in the Valley and with her family, says Fishwick. She taught respect and appreciation of the arts to her family.
“My father and I talked daily and visited once a week,” before his death, says the junior Fishwick. The elder Fishwick was general counsel and vice president of N&W, a position of significant influence, locally and nationally.
The communication habit continues with Fishwick’s two sons, Richard, who works at the Fishwick & Associates law firm, and Jack, the men’s and women’s tennis coach at Roanoke College. There is a distinct closeness among them and they regularly play tennis and golf together.
The sons’ careers have deviated from their father’s and grandfather’s, but, says the junior Fishwick, “We encourage them to go where they want to go, to find what they love.” And, of course, Fishwick and his wife Jeanne are there every step of the way. “They are still young guys and I think they will do a lot of great things.”
Does he advise them? He smiles. “They give me advice,” he says.
Fishwick is 68 years old and he started the family later than most and says, “There’s nothing like being an older parent, but I think I would have been as good at 25 as at 35.”
The law has been at the center of Fishwick’s life for many years and he is philosophical about his approach. “I love the opportunity the law gives me because for many clients this is their first exposure and they need somebody to fight for them, to explain the law in simple terms.”
His firm, which concentrates on personal injury, civil rights and federal criminal cases, employs five lawyers and 13 total workers. “Mostly our cases are for those who are underdogs,” says Fishwick.
His clean, simple explanations of prominent national legal cases in the age of Trump has drawn a good bit of attention to his expertise from cable TV channels. “I try to meet people where they are,” he says. “I think I have the ability to take the complex and make it understandable. We want clients to be comfortable” and to understand. “I try to be honest and straightforward.”
And he plays the game that same way with his family: honest, direct, clear and supportive. The same way his dad treated him.
The story above is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!