Chambers Ranks Phillips & Associates in 2026 Guide as Firm Sharpens Focus on Workplace Power Dynamics and Relationship Retaliation

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Jul 15, 2026, 18:39 ET

Recognition follows the firm's work in harassment, discrimination, retaliation, high-profile employment matters, and cases involving supervisors, executives, law firm partners, physicians, founders, and other people with authority over an employee's career.

NEW YORK, July 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Phillips & Associates has been ranked in the 2026 Chambers USA Guide for Labor & Employment: Mainly Plaintiffs in New York, recognizing the firm's work representing employees in harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and high-profile employment matters.

Chambers described Phillips & Associates as "a reputable plaintiff-side employment firm" and noted the firm's work in harassment, discrimination, and high-profile lawsuits. The guide also recognized the team's business judgment, commercial awareness, practical legal analysis, integrity, and compassion for clients.

For founder William K. Phillips, the ranking reflects the kind of employment practice the firm has built since opening in November 2011: employees only, employment law only, and cases centered on workplace power, retaliation, and accountability.

"Employment cases are not just about what happened," Phillips said. "They are about who had power, how that power was used, what changed after the employee pushed back, and whether the employer's explanation holds up."

A Plaintiff-Side Employment Firm Built Around Power Dynamics

Phillips & Associates represents employees exclusively and has never represented employers or management. The firm handles workplace sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, whistleblower retaliation, hostile work environment, pregnancy discrimination, medical leave and accommodation disputes, wage issues, and related employment matters.

Since 2011, Phillips & Associates has:

Recovered more than $360 million for employees
Litigated approximately 2,000 employment cases
Recovered more than $60 million in 2025
Appeared before more than 110 U.S. District Judges and more than 70 U.S. Magistrate Judges

The firm's current public positioning centers on a category it has long handled: workplace power dynamics. These cases often involve supervisors, executives, business owners, physicians, law firm partners, founders, rainmakers, and managers who control compensation, assignments, schedules, promotions, discipline, reputation, accommodations, or continued employment.

In many of these matters, the legal issue is not simply whether inappropriate conduct occurred. The issue is how authority was used.

Workplace Relationships, Sexual Harassment, and Retaliation

According to Phillips, many workplace sexual harassment cases no longer begin with an explicit demand for sex or a stranger's crude comment. They often begin with blurred boundaries and power.

"They begin with a supervisor who starts texting late at night. A managing partner who keeps asking an associate to dinner. A physician who buys gifts for an employee. A CEO who complains about problems in his marriage. A founder who slowly blurs professional boundaries until saying no no longer feels like a real option."

Many employees describe these situations as consensual at first. Phillips says the legal analysis is often more complicated.

"When someone controls your compensation, assignments, promotion opportunities, reputation, or whether you keep your job, the question is not simply whether two people dated. The question is whether the employee ever realistically felt free to say no."

The firm represents employees in matters involving workplace relationship harassment, supervisor sexual harassment, quid pro quo harassment, hostile work environment claims, retaliation after rejecting advances, retaliation after ending workplace relationships, and retaliation after reporting harassment to HR.

Employees often describe the same patterns:

A boss keeps asking for dates or private meetings
A supervisor sends late-night texts or personal messages
A manager gives better shifts or assignments to employees who give personal attention
A law firm partner blurs professional and romantic boundaries
A physician, executive, founder, or business owner uses authority to pressure an employee
The employee says no, ends the relationship, or reports the conduct, and the job changes

Retaliation may appear as lost assignments, reduced hours, worse shifts, sudden negative reviews, exclusion from meetings, denied bonuses or promotions, pressure to resign, severance offers, or termination.

"Retaliation often starts when the employee tries to take back control," Phillips said. "The relationship ends, the employee says no, or the employee reports what happened. Then the employer suddenly discovers performance problems that were never there before."

Publicly Reported High-Profile Matters

The Chambers recognition also reflects the firm's work in high-profile and sensitive matters involving public figures, major institutions, financial institutions, entertainment companies, and powerful individuals.

Publicly reported matters involving Phillips & Associates attorneys include:

McKinney v. Combs, a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York involving allegations of sexual assault against Sean Combs. The matter is handled by Partner Michelle Caiola.and has been covered by national media.
McKinney v. Weinstein, a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York involving allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein. The matter is handled by Caiola. And has been covered by national media.
Dickerson-Neal v. Combs, a New York Adult Survivors Act lawsuit filed against Sean 'Diddy' Combs in New York Supreme Court. Partner Michelle Caiola..
Caruso-Jones v. RBC Capital Markets, a federal pregnancy and gender discrimination lawsuit brought by a former managing director alleging bias against women and new mothers. Partner Michelle Caiola.

These publicly reported matters are examples only. Many of the firm's significant harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and abuse-of-power matters resolve confidentially before litigation is filed. Together, they reflect the type of work Chambers described: high-stakes employment matters involving powerful defendants, reputational risk, serious allegations, and the need for legal judgment, discretion, and litigation capacity

All allegations in pending matters remain allegations unless and until proven in court.

Litigation Record and Team Structure

Phillips & Associates is not built around a single public-facing lawyer. Clients are assigned dedicated litigation teams led by a partner or senior litigator and supported by an associate attorney and paralegal. The firm's attorneys work in-house, and the same team that evaluates the case remains involved as it moves through negotiation, mediation, discovery, motion practice, trial, or appeal.

The firm has litigated against more than 550 management-side defense firms, including Jackson Lewis, Littler Mendelson, Ogletree Deakins, Seyfarth Shaw, Morgan Lewis, Proskauer Rose, and other national defense firms.

Its litigation record includes published decisions cited by other courts, including Vasquez v. Empress Ambulance Service, where the Second Circuit adopted the cat's paw theory of retaliation and extended it to nonsupervisory employees, and Roberts v. Genting New York, where the Second Circuit revived WARN Act claims on behalf of 177 employees. The firm's trial results include a $1.8 million federal jury verdict in Pardovani v. Crown Building Maintenance in the Southern District of New York.

"Employers and defense firms approach cases differently when they know the employee's lawyers are prepared to litigate," Phillips said. "Trial readiness creates leverage. A demand letter is not a litigation strategy." That trial-ready reputation helps the firm resolve many matters favorably, often confidentially and before a complaint is ever filed.

The firm's model is built around dedicated litigation teams, partners and senior litigators who have worked together on employment cases for more than a decade, and a practice devoted exclusively to employment law. Career-impacting employment cases require evidence, witnesses, timelines, damages analysis, litigation judgment, and a team that can stay with the case.

Business Judgment and Trauma-Informed Representation

Chambers' comments about business context and commercial awareness also align with the firm's approach to executive, high-earner, and sophisticated employment disputes.

Before founding Phillips & Associates, William K. Phillips worked in investment banking and international mergers and acquisitions, including as a vice president at a New York investment bank. That background informs the firm's work in matters involving compensation, equity, deferred compensation, severance, bonuses, career loss, and executive exits.

The firm also emphasizes trauma-informed communication in cases involving sexual harassment, sexual assault, coercion, retaliation, and misconduct by people in authority. The goal is to help clients understand their rights, preserve evidence, evaluate risk, and make decisions before an employer or HR department controls the record.

Phillips also founded the National Plaintiffs' Summit on Sexual Harassment and Employment Discrimination, a national conference focused on training plaintiff-side employment lawyers on litigation strategy, damages, evidence, and advocacy in serious workplace cases.

About Phillips & Associates

Phillips & Associates is an employment-only litigation firm representing employees in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The firm represents employees exclusively and has never represented employers. Its practice focuses on workplace sexual harassment, workplace relationship harassment, supervisor sexual harassment, quid pro quo harassment, hostile work environment, retaliation after rejecting advances, retaliation after workplace relationships end, retaliation after reporting harassment, whistleblower retaliation, pregnancy discrimination, disability accommodation, wrongful termination, and related employment matters.

The firm has been ranked by Chambers and Partners in the 2026 Chambers USA Guide for Labor & Employment: Mainly Plaintiffs in New York, and has been recognized by Best Lawyers and Best Law Firms.

The firm works on contingency, with no attorney fees unless it recovers for the client.

Contact:
Phillips & Associates | Sexual Harassment, Discrimination & Employment Lawyers
Vanessa Keys, COO
[email protected]
212-248-7431
Website: https://www.newyorkcitydiscriminationlawyer.com/

SOURCE Phillips & Associates