People v. Fielder.
No. 24PDJ082. 8/6/2025. Stipulation to Discipline.
October 15, 2025
The Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved the parties’ amended stipulation to discipline and suspended Gary D. Fielder (attorney registration number 19757) for 18 months, all to be stayed upon Fielder’s successful completion of a two-year period of probation, with conditions. Fielder’s probation took effect on August 6, 2025.
In December 2020, Fielder and his co-counsel, who was not licensed to practice law in Colorado, signed and filed a class-action complaint in the US District Court for the District of Colorado. The complaint named as plaintiffs eight US citizens who were registered voters at the time of the 2020 presidential election. The defendants named in the complaint included Delaware corporations Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. and Facebook, Inc.; Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg and Zuckerburg’s spouse, Priscilla Chan; Illinois nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life; the governors and secretaries of the states of Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania; the governor of Wisconsin and members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission; and “Does 1-10,000, co-conspirators.” The complaint alleged that the defendants engaged in a concerted action to interfere with the 2020 presidential election. Fielder did not conduct an independent investigation into allegations in the complaint that were cited to news articles, complaints from other lawsuits, social media, and a purported forensic analysis report of voting hardware and software in Michigan.
In April 2021, the district court dismissed the case based on lack of standing. The defendants subsequently moved for sanctions against Fielder under Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, 28 USC § 1927, and the district court’s inherent authority. Following a hearing on sanctions, the district court granted the defendants’ motions and sanctioned Fielder and his co-counsel by awarding attorney fees, for which Fielder and his co-counsel were jointly and severally liable, due to the “woeful lack of investigation into the law and facts” and making “objectively frivolous legal claims,” including about standing and personal jurisdiction.
Fielder appealed the dismissal and the sanctions award to the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The appellate court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the claims, the reward of sanctions against Fielder, and the finding that there was no good-faith basis for asserting personal jurisdiction over the Michigan and Pennsylvania defendants in the District of Colorado. In December 2022, the US Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari that Fielder helped prepare and that his co-counsel filed with that court.
Through this misconduct, Fielder violated Colo. RPC 3.1 (a lawyer must not assert frivolous claims) and Colo. RPC 8.4(d) (it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice).