Vita of Julian L. McPhillips, Jr.

Senior Partner, Founder & President

McPhillips Shinbaum, L.L.P.      Email: jmcphillips@msg-lawfirm.com

516 South Perry Street         

Montgomery, Alabama 36101              

Phone: 334-262-1911 

Born: Nov. 13, 1946, Birmingham, Alabama

Wife: J. Leslie McPhillips (Married 35 years)

Daughter: Rachel McPhillips Plucker (31), elementary teacher in Helena, Ala. (near Birmingham) (first McPhillips’ grandchild Eva Laurel Plucker born May ‘08)

Daughter: Grace McPhillips Lunsford (28), actress in Chicago, and co-owner of GreenDream Business

Son: David McPhillips (19), student at Shelton State Community College , Tuscaloosa

Home Town: Montgomery, Ala. (62-64; 75-09); Cullman, Ala. (46-59)

Sewanee Military Academy, 1959-1964; Princeton University, 1964-1968, A.B. cum laude in history; and Columbia University Law School, 1968-1971, J.D. (Juris Doctor). Received Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree in 2002 from the Tennessee School of Religion, and Honorary Doctor of Religious Humanities degree in 2002 from the Global Evangelical Christian College and Seminary.

Associate Attorney, Davis, Polk & Wardwell, New York, NY (1971-1973), Associate Counsel, American Express Company (1973-1975); Assistant Attorney General, State of Alabama 1975-1977. Sr. Partner, President & founding Attorney, McPhillips Shinbaum, L.L.P. & predecessor firms, 1977-2009. Admitted: New York Bar, 1972; Alabama Bar, 1975; Supreme Court of Alabama, 1975; Supreme Court of Alabama, 1975; Supreme Court of United States, 1976, and many federal court bars.

American Association of Justice (1979-2009); Alabama Association of Justice (1979-2009);  American Bar Association (1972-2009); Alabama Bar Association (1975-2009); Montgomery County Bar Association (1975-2009); Montgomery County Trial Lawyers Assn. (1980-2009);  Alabama Criminal Defense Lawyers Assoc. (1980-2009); and Association of the Bar of the City of New York (1972-2009). Ordained minister, Global Evangelical Christian College Seminary & Accrediting Commission, January, 2005.

Co-founder (1981), and member, Christ the Redeemer Episcopal Church (1981-2007); member, Holy Spirit Anglican Church (2007-2009); Co-founder (1987), and board member of the Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum; Co-founder (2003), president and board chair of the McPhillips International Center for Religious and Racial Reconciliation; National board member, Anglicans for Life; state board member, Alabama Lawyers for Life; board member of the Alabama World Affairs Council (1979-2009), member Montgomery Lions Club (1976-2009); member, Board of Visitors, St. James School, Montgomery.

In an Associated Press feature story in state-wide newspapers in 1983, McPhillips was deemed the “public watchdog of Alabama”, a 1984 Montgomery Advertiser column named McPhillips the“private attorney general of Alabama”. In the 1997 Montgomery Advertiser “Reader’s Choice Award,” McPhillips was voted by the readers of the Montgomery Advertiser as “Best Attorney in Montgomery”. McPhillips is the subject of a book first published in 2000 and republished in 2005 entitled “The People’s Lawyer, the Colorful Life and Times of Julian L. McPhillips, Jr.”.

Candidate, Alabama Attorney General, 1978 (finished 2nd in 9 candidate race). Candidate, U.S. Senate 2002 (made Democratic Primary runoff, but lost); Twice elected delegate to Democratic National Convention 1980 and 2000. Chairman, Law School Senate, Columbia Law School (1969- 1971); All-American collegiate wrestler (hm) at Princeton (1967); twice Eastern AAU heavyweight wrestling champion (1971; 1973); 3rd place, National AAU Championship Tournament, 1973, in 220lb class; five-time member of New York Athletic Club wrestling team, winner of National AAU Championship, 1968-1973; finalist in the 1972 Olympic tryouts, 220lb class. Winner of 1985 Communication & Leadership Award, Toastmaster’s International; Winner of four awards from Southern Christian Leadership Conference: Leadership Award (2000), Legacy of the Dreamer Award (2001), Martin Luther King,  Jr. Social Consciousness Award (2003), and Humanitarian Award (2005) - presented jointly to Julian and Leslie McPhillips. Alabama State Association of Elks “Humanitarian Award” (2008); Alabama Citizens for Life “Individual Community Leader Award” (2008).

Author, “From Vacillation to Resolve: The Role of French Communist Party in the Resistance

Movement Against the Nazis” 1939-45 (unpublished thesis in 1968 at Princeton); Co-author, “The People’s Lawyer, the Colorful Life and Times of Julian L. McPhillips, Jr.” (2nd edition) (NewSouth Books, 2005); Author: History of Christ the Redeemer Episcopal Church (NewSouth  Books, 2005).

Page Updated:  August 18, 2009