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Phillips & Associates, PLLC founder William K. Phillips was recently featured in the "Inside the Build" founder spotlight, part of Amy Cornforth's LinkedIn newsletter The Subtle Art of Leadership, which examines leadership patterns and the decisions behind how firms are built.
The conversation traced why Mr. Phillips started our firm and how he built it to represent employees exclusively in sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation cases. He described seeing a gap: employees facing workplace misconduct were often represented by very small firms going up against the large, well-funded firms that employers hire to defend these cases.
"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," he said.
That idea shaped how our firm runs. Mr. Phillips described building repeatable teams, each with a lead litigator, an associate, and a paralegal under his oversight, and reviewing every case regularly for strategy and value. Drawing on a background in finance, he stressed the reserves a contingency firm needs to fully fund discovery, depositions, and expert witnesses rather than cutting corners when a case gets expensive.
The feature also turned to leadership itself, and what it takes to grow. As Mr. Phillips put it:
"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 clients, that approach is the point. Building a firm with the people and resources to take on employers' defense firms is what lets us develop cases thoroughly and see them through. To date, our firm has handled more than 9,500 employment matters, litigated nearly 2,000 cases, and recovered over $360 million for employees.
Mr. Phillips's work also extends beyond our firm. He founded the National Plaintiffs' Summit on Sexual Harassment and Employment Discrimination, created HarassmentHelp.org to help employees understand their rights, and hosts the podcast "Not in the (Company) Newsletter."
You can read the full founder spotlight here.
If you are facing sexual harassment, discrimination, or retaliation at work, our firm can help. Call (866) 229-9441 or contact us online for a consultation.