Attorney Profile and Approach

Experience, expertise, ethics, and empathy

Civil rights attorney Aaron Zisser combines deep expertise with a personal touch to help his clients navigate the labyrinthine legal process and vindicate their rights. His clients, throughout California and elsewhere, have all experienced enormous trauma: the loss of a loved one to suicide or homicide, sexual abuse or violence, excessive use of force by police, discrimination. Many of them have also experienced “institutional betrayal”: abuse or dismissiveness by the very agencies that should be protecting or vindicating them.

These complex cases require sophistication and genuine sensitivity.

A compassionate and empathetic approach

Mr. Zisser draws from his extensive experience to understand the profound and lasting impact of civil rights violations. He works with his clients closely, as collaborators and partners; prizes making himself available; pursues their goals; responds promptly and clearly; and is sensitive and trauma-informed while also being honest and transparent. He treats his clients with humanity and dignity and brings them fully into the process.

Mr. Zisser’s strong commitment to civil rights and human rights work started very early. He interned in high school with a nonprofit organization assisting people incarcerated in the local jail and in college for the local public defender’s office. His commitment to addressing violence, in particular, is rooted in his own personal experience with the devastating loss of a loved one to violence and the impact of that tragedy on his family.

Extensive experience

Mr. Zisser has dedicated his entire career to protecting civil and constitutional rights, preventing harm to individuals and communities, and confronting institutions and agencies over their abusive policies and practices.

Mr. Zisser has had the opportunity to address the worst abuses in a variety of roles. As an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, he investigated prison and jail conditions, the systemic exclusion of people with mental disabilities, and sexual abuse and discrimination in schools. He worked as a local prosecutor in a specialized unit addressing police use of force and directed two independent police oversight agencies. As a consultant, he has reviewed jails and prisons and advised police oversight agencies. He worked as a university Title IX Coordinator and Equal Opportunity Director.

Deep expertise

Mr. Zisser brings deep expertise and a particular aptitude and passion for delving into the facts, closely reviewing records, and building a compelling narrative. Mr. Zisser is experienced in both systemic issues in institutions and individual cases involving workplace discrimination, discrimination and abuse in schools, and police and jailer misconduct. He is a rare attorney who advocates on behalf of victims/survivors in Title IX sexual misconduct cases.

Early in his career, Mr. Zisser clerked for a U.S. District Court judge in Memphis and was a staff attorney at a nonprofit civil rights organization in Philadelphia. He also worked for an international human rights organization, which sent him to monitor the first tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr. Zisser is licensed to practice in California and New York and works out of San Jose, California. He earned his law degree from Georgetown University and his BA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, both with honors.