William K. Phillips founded Phillips & Associates, PLLC around a straightforward principle: employees facing powerful employers need a law firm with the people, litigation experience, and financial resources to handle career-impacting workplace cases.
Mr. Phillips recently discussed that philosophy in an Inside the Build founder spotlight for Amy Cornforth's LinkedIn newsletter, The Subtle Art of Leadership. The interview examined why he started Phillips & Associates, PLLC, how he structured our firm, and what it takes to represent employees against major employers and the well-funded defense firms they hire.
Building a Firm for an Unequal Fight
Before founding Phillips & Associates, PLLC, Mr. Phillips saw a significant gap in employee-side employment law.
Employees dealing with sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, or a hostile work environment were often represented by solo lawyers or very small firms. Their employers could retain national defense firms with substantial staffing, technology, and financial resources.
"I knew right from the beginning I had to build a firm that had the human resources and the financial resources to stand up against those powerful litigation law firms," Mr. Phillips explained.
That decision shaped our firm from the beginning.
We developed dedicated litigation teams led by partners or senior litigators and supported by associate attorneys and paralegals. Each team develops the facts, preserves evidence, evaluates damages, negotiates with defense counsel, and prepares the matter for litigation.
As Mr. Phillips stated in the interview:
"You can't go up against big law firms without a team. They'll bury you."
For an employee, the issue is not simply how many lawyers a firm employs. It is whether the firm has the structure and resources to build a difficult case fully and continue fighting when the employer refuses to resolve it fairly.
Why Financial Resources Matter in Employment Litigation
Mr. Phillips's background in investment banking influenced how he built our firm. One concept he emphasized was the need for a contingency law firm to maintain sufficient reserves to fund serious litigation.
Career-impacting employment cases can require extensive discovery, depositions, investigators, expert witnesses, digital evidence review, and years of litigation. A firm without sufficient resources may face pressure to limit that work or accept an early resolution because continuing the case becomes too expensive.
"Firms that succeed have a war chest," Mr. Phillips said. "You have to have the money to do all the discovery that needs to be done, to push the case, to hire the experts, whether it's a private investigator or an expert on power dynamics and trauma. That's what gets you the best result."
The ability to finance litigation does not mean every case should be filed or taken to trial. It means decisions can be based on the evidence, the law, the client's goals, and the realistic value of the case rather than the cost of continuing the fight.
Employment Law Exclusively. Employees Only. Never Employers.
We practice employment law exclusively. We represent employees only and have never represented an employer.
That focus has created repeated experience with the statutes, evidence, damages, employer defenses, workplace power dynamics, and litigation strategies that shape sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, whistleblower, hostile work environment, and related employment cases.
Phillips & Associates, PLLC at a Glance
Our record reflects years of representing employees, and only employees, in career-impacting workplace disputes:
- More than $360 million recovered for employees
- More than $60 million recovered in 2025
- Approximately 2,000 employment cases litigated in court
- Litigated against more than 550 management-side defense firms
- Appeared before more than 110 United States District Judges and more than 70 United States Magistrate Judges
- Ranked by Chambers and Partners in the 2026 Chambers USA Guide and recognized by Best Law Firms, Best Lawyers, and Super Lawyers®
- 38 full-time, in-house attorneys working in dedicated litigation teams led by partners and senior litigators
- More than 200 years of combined employment-law experience
Many of our partners have worked together on sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation matters for more than a decade. Our litigation reputation with management-side defense firms, employers, and insurance carriers can create leverage to resolve matters privately and confidentially, including in appropriate cases before a lawsuit is filed.
Leadership Requires Letting Other People Lead
The interview also addressed the leadership changes required to grow a law firm.
"In order to get to that next level, you've got to relinquish your ego," Mr. Phillips said. "You need to know that you're not the smartest person in the room, or be willing to not be the smartest person in the room."
For us, that meant developing experienced partners, senior litigators, associates, and paralegals who could lead teams, exercise judgment, and take responsibility for case outcomes.
We are not structured around one lawyer handling every client or making every decision. We're built around experienced teams, senior-level review, and continuity from the first client meeting through negotiation, litigation, trial preparation, or resolution.
Leadership Beyond the Firm
Mr. Phillips founded the National Plaintiffs' Summit on Sexual Harassment and Employment Discrimination, a national conference that brings together plaintiff-side employment lawyers, experts, and advocates from across the country to exchange strategies, share data, and advance litigation, case valuation, and accountability in workplace misconduct cases.
He also hosts the Not in the (Company) Newsletter podcast, which brings together employment lawyers, mental-health professionals, advocates, and people who have experienced workplace misconduct to discuss how harassment and retaliation develop and what employees can do about them.
Mr. Phillips is a member of the Forbes Business Council and has authored articles for Forbes on workplace harassment, law-firm leadership, and plaintiff-side practice. His work has also been featured in national and legal publications.
The complete interview provides a closer look at the decisions behind our team structure, litigation funding, leadership model, and employee-only focus. You can read the full interview here.
If you're dealing with sexual harassment, discrimination, or retaliation at work, call (866) 229-9441 or contact us online. We offer free and confidential consultations. We represent employees on a contingency basis, meaning there are no attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you.