Richard Jerome Phillips

I hired Mr. Phillips for several issues. The first was a firearm related issue. His opinion was that I would have no problems purchasing firearms after being falsely accused by a woman that had accused 4 men of stalking her before me. I placed an order for several expensive arms and after a 2 year... wait was denied. After this (but before having the firearm issue) I hired him for a divorce. I had to do a lot of the leg work, finding documents, and coming up with basic ideas of how to proceed in the case. This is what he was paid for, I shouldn’t have to do that. Next is the most serious case. I’m a medical doctor and was falsely accused and defamed. I paid Mr. Phillips thousands of dollars months and months ago. At the time he agreed to take my case and my money. When the time came to go to court he wanted to bail out. I literally had to convince him while in court to proceed, he gave several excuses trying to get out of it. We ended up winning the first part of that case. However soon after Mr. Phillips informed me he had a new client, a Hemp shop, and no longer had time to help me with my case even though he was paid for it. Can you imagine being told your attorney no longer has time for you because they have a new client? This was very bizarre because we won a million dollar verdict. Who would try to get out of a case like that? During the second defamation court proceeding I found out that Mr. Phillips neglected to confirm that the defendant was properly served. The million dollar verdict was dismissed in TN. A waste of thousands of dollars and many many months of stress and worry. Also for 3 months I sent emails, texts, and phone calls to publish our first defamation case win to repair my reputation as a medical doctor. He said he was too busy. Yes he actually said he was too busy to send Johnson City Press an email to repair my reputation. He said after October 1 I would have to find a new lawyer, again very bizarre. He then said after Oct 1 he would publish the win in the newspaper after I kept asking over and over and over... yeah that’s not a typo. I would need a new lawyer after Oct 1 but he would publish the results of the trial after Oct 1? No, he knew he screwed up my case and there would be no case after Oct 1 to publish. He either lied or misinformed me about documents that other attorneys were requesting which would have made a very big difference in the outcome of my case. In addition to all this I would send him detailed emails regarding our various cases, I do not believe he ever read anything or just disregarded it. This is not a guy you can trust. -Dan Nicolau, MD