Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 6, 1994 TAG: 9402020266
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MIRIAM PEPPER KANSAS CITY STAR
DATELINE: KANSAS CITY, MO. LENGTH: Medium
Now there is another version: mother-daughter law firms. Phillips & Phillips in Kansas City is led by Sue Phillips, who left a large firm to share a practice with her daughter, Beth Phillips.
Together they are designing a law firm culture that eschews unlikable clients, inflexible schedules and strict dress codes.
"We decided we could do it our way and do it better," said Sue Phillips, seated in her office. "I didn't have to wait for a partner to retire to get a corner office, either."
Rather than letting financial demands drive the client list, both agree they will work only with clients they enjoy. Most of their work involves representing plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases.
Mondays and Fridays are generally dress-down days. "I much prefer jeans and crossed legs to pound out briefs on my computer," Beth Phillips said.
The younger Phillips, who plans to marry in September, can envision a nursery attached to her office.
With laptop computers, modems and portable printers, work at home is easily accommodated, both agree. Already, they do lots of off-hours work. It's flexible, but still arduous. And profitable. Within a year, Sue Phillips had surpassed her former income and Beth Phillips passed first-year associate salaries at top firms within six months.
Sue Phillips tends to have clients call her at home between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., while her daughter takes evening calls. Their closeness carries over at home, too. Her daughter lives "a minute away, by foot" in a separate house on a 40-acre family farm. It's a 12-minute commute to work.
Her daughter's wedding is carefully calculated to just miss the expected trial of an employment retaliation case. Their client is a male manager who lost his job after supporting a woman subordinate who complained of sexual harassment.
The two haven't found other area law peers in their mother-daughter endeavor.
Sue Phillips ran a successful horse stable while her two children were young. She graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City law school in 1983. She spent nine years at a large firm, where she was a partner and head of the employment law section.
During the younger Phillips' law school days at the University of Missouri, friends envied her job prospects with two parents in prominent Kansas City law firms. Her father, John Phillips, is a managing partner at a larger firm, where her fiance works. Yet nepotism policies prevented the daughter from joining either parent's large firm.
Frequently, the women are asked about the downside of working together. They don't see a downside. They say their relationship has always been easy, and sharing the office is the best arrangement they can imagine.
"Law firms have a tendency to chew up and spit out associates," Sue Phillips said. That's not on either's agenda.
"You have to have the courage to choose to make your own lifestyle," she said. "If you don't, corporate America will make it for you."
by CNB