Personal
Fitzgerald was born into an Irish-American Catholic family in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, growing up in the Midwood-Flatbush neighborhood. His father (also named Patrick Fitzgerald) worked as a doorman in Manhattan.
Fitzgerald attended Our Lady Help of Christians grammar school, before going on to Regis High School, a prestigious Jesuit Catholic school in Manhattan, and received degrees in economics and mathematics from Amherst College, Phi Beta Kappa, before receiving his JD from Harvard Law School in 1985. He played rugby at Amherst and at Harvard he was a member of the Harvard Business School Rugby Club.
Reports indicate that despite being universally seen as extremely competent, intelligent, and meticulous in his work, behind the scenes he is ironically messy, scatterbrained, and fun-loving. His desk and his office are kept in permanent disarray, with assistants discovering drawers stuffed with dirty socks. He once forgot to hook up gas to his stove for several months, and also forgot a lasagna he had cooked in the oven for three months before finally rediscovering it there. He is known to work well past midnight often and to sleep in his office. He enjoys beer, basketball, and practical jokes. Once when a colleague was nervously waiting for an answer for a judge on a motion, Fitzgerald wrote and delivered a fake court opinion to the colleague. He tried for several months to adopt a cat, but was refused due to his work habit. He finally found a friend in Florida with a cat to give away, which she had flown to him in New York.
Fitzgerald married Jennifer Letzkus in June, 2008. It is his first marriage and her second; Letzkus was married from 2001 to 2004 to Cisco executive Jeremy Crisup. Their son, Conor Patrick Fitzgerald, was born on December 21, 2009. They also have a son, Declan.
Read more about this topic: Patrick Fitzgerald
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