John R. Phillips (attorney)
| John Phillips | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| United States Ambassador to Italy | |
|
In office February 19, 2014 – January 20, 2017 |
|
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | David Thorne |
| Succeeded by | Kelly C. Degnan (Acting) |
| United States Ambassador to San Marino | |
|
In office October 2, 2013 – January 20, 2017 |
|
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | David Thorne |
| Succeeded by | Kelly Degnan (Acting / Chargé d'Affaires) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
December 15, 1942 Leechburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Linda Douglass |
| Children | 1 |
| Education |
University of Notre Dame UC Berkeley School of Law |
John R. Phillips (born December 15, 1942) is an American diplomat and attorney, and the former United States Ambassador to Italy and San Marino, serving from 2014 to 2017 and 2013 to 2017, respectively. As a partner at Phillips & Cohen, LLP (1988–2013) and before that, in Los Angeles, he practiced public interest law, specializing in whistleblower cases that recovered over $55 billion from companies defrauding the government.
Phillips was born and grew up in Leechburg, Pennsylvania, a small steel mill town in western Pennsylvania. His grandparents emigrated from Italy in the early 1900s and Americanized their family name by changing it from “Filippi” to “Phillips.”
Phillips received a B.A. degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1966 and a J.D. degree in 1969 from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where he was a member of the editorial board of the California Law Review.
Phillips joined the Los Angeles, California, law firm of O’Melveny & Myers as an associate in 1969. After two years, he left to start one of the first Ford Foundation-funded public interest law firms, the Center for Law in the Public Interest (CLIPI), in Los Angeles with three former colleagues.
Phillips was co-director of CLIPI for 17 years. During that time, the firm was a major force litigating landmark environmental, civil rights, consumer protection and corporate fraud and accountability cases. Some of its court cases:
Phillips played a significant role in the creation of the US government’s very successful whistleblower reward program designed to encourage private citizens to expose and stop defense contractor fraud, Medicare fraud and other types of fraud against the government. He worked closely with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and then-Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) to secure congressional passage of the amended False Claims Act with “qui tam” (whistleblower) provisions which were signed into law by President Reagan in October 1986. The law has become the government’s primary tool in holding accountable corporations that have defrauded the U.S. government. To date, over $55 billion have been recovered by the U.S. Treasury from companies that have defrauded the government. The benefit-to-cost ratio of the False Claims Act has been estimated at more than $20 for every $1 governments spend on enforcement.
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