Attorney
Montgomery, Ohio, 45242
Prior to practicing law, Mr. Phillips received a Bachelor of Science in Nuclear Engineering and a Master of Science in Engineering. He worked as an engineer in Cincinnati, Boston and Minneapolis prior to practicing law. As an engineer he was responsible for Quality Assurance and Regulatory Compliance at three nuclear power plants. Mr. Phillips received his law degree from the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.
While living in Minnesota, he was appointed twice by Governor Rudolph Perpich to serve on the Hazardous Substance Injury compensation Board where he was Vice Chairman. He left Minnesota to join the litigation department of Taft, Stettinius and Hollister where he focused his practice on environmental law and litigation. In 1994, he left Taft, Stettinius and Hollister to become managing partner of what is now Phillips Law Firm, Inc.
He is actively involved in his community where he has been President of the Hamilton County Board of Health, President of the Park W. Gast, Jr. Education Foundation, Vice President of the Board of Trustees of the Cincinnati Chapter of Triangle, Inc. (an engineering, architecture and science fraternity at the University of Cincinnati), and President and Founder of a continuing legal education provider known as the Northeast Lawyers Club. He is a member of the Cincinnati Bar Association, and serves on the environmental law committee, professional responsibility and ethics committee, and real estate committee.
He is also a member of the Ohio Free and Accepted Masons and the Syrian Shrine in Cincinnati, Ohio.Mr. Phillips handles a wide variety of cases for clients. He handles personal injury cases, business disputes, legal malpractice, and bad faith insurance claims. He has litigated cases from Texas to Minnesota, and from New York to Oregon. He represents businesses and individual clients in the areas of personal injury , business disputes, legal malpractice, insurance claims, construction law and building code compliance, real estate law and development, landlord-tenant, business formations, non-profit corporations, and estate planning. Mr. Phillips also has significant experience handling complex litigation such as fires and explosions. He has handled environmental issues including clients with issues regarding the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (Superfund), Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, Atomic Energy Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, to name a few.
He is an experienced litigator and trial attorney with multiple bench trials, jury trials, and administrative hearings too numerous to count including legal malpractice, medical malpractice, personal injury, contract, business, environmental law, and zoning.
He has drafted many ordinances including an anti-nuisance zoning ordinance for a local village to prevent undesirable businesses from moving into an area, an environmental justice ordinances to prevent the spread of environmental hazards on low income areas, and regulations on rabies, sewage disposal and other public health issues. He has brought private enforcement cases against government officials that ultimately resulted in the felony conviction and five-year prison sentence of a City Mayor.
He has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Cincinnati in the Biology Department teaching "Environmental Law for Non-Lawyers", and he has been an Adjunct Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department teaching "Reactor Lab" and "Radiation Detection and Measurement."
