The Wall Street Journal and the National Law Journal have called John R. Phillips “the nation’s premier whistleblower attorney.” The National Law Journal has included him on all of its lists of the “100 most influential lawyers in America” for the past decade.

Mr. Phillips, a founding partner of Phillips & Cohen LLP, worked closely with Congress to revise and strengthen the False Claims Act in 1986. The law, which allows private citizens to file lawsuits against those defrauding the federal government, has become the government’s major weapon to fight Medicare fraud. His work on the law and the firm’s cases were described in a book published by Atlantic Monthly Press called Giantkillers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America’s Stolen Billions.

Mr. Phillips has a long history of involvement in public interest law. After graduating in 1969 from the University of California School of Law (Boalt Hall), he was an associate at the Los Angeles law firm of O’Melveny & Myers.

In 1971, he co-founded the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles, which focused on environmental, civil rights, corporate fraud and other issues. Mr. Phillips served as the co-director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest for 17 years before starting his own firm in 1988 that focused solely on qui tam cases.

From 1988 to 1993, Mr. Phillips was an appointed member of the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. In 1997, he was appointed by President Clinton to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.