Jim Phillips was a struggling junior at the University of North Texas when he bumped into one of his old high school teachers, who told him something that proved to be the spark that turned his life around and inspired him to go to law school and to become the successful corporate lawyer he is today.
The teacher did not offer Phillips words of encouragement or support or help. In fact, it was the opposite.
“The teacher wasn’t particularly surprised that I was not successful,” Phillips said.
Whether Phillips took it as reverse psychology or it just pissed him off, the result was the same: He significantly increased his grades, paid his own way through law school, worked on his first finance transaction when he was still a third-year law student, gained extraordinary corporate deal experience at two middle market M&A law firms and is now the general counsel at PMG Worldwide, which is one of the nation’s largest independent digital advertisement agencies.
“As small as it was, that comment [from the teacher] coupled with the realization that I did want to practice law drastically helped to flip the switch,” he said.
Less than two years ago, Fort Worth-based PMG hired Phillips to create and build its legal department from scratch. He now supports all agency business units, which signs more than 200 media and real estate contracts a month. He negotiates and writes the company’s master services agreements, influencer agreements, insertion orders, construction contracts, leases, asset purchase agreements, joint venture agreements, licensing contracts, nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements and employment agreements for key personnel.
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“In one of the fast-evolving business models in the economy, Jim handles all legal issues for PMG and daily interfaces with the company’s C-suite,” said Dykema member Christopher Kratovil. “Jim has helped steer PMG through the pandemic, including leasing and PPP issues. He implemented several key processes to minimize exposure including establishing a contract management system, complete with all form templates.
“Jim established procedures to ensure compliance with data privacy and FTC regulations,” Kratovil said. “In short, Jim has played a key role in keeping PMG growing and successful through an extraordinarily challenging year.”
At age 34, Phillips regularly finds himself across the proverbial table from lawyers at Google, Apple and Facebook negotiating digital ad contracts.
Based on his extraordinary success during his first two years at PMG, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Jim Phillips a finalist for the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year.
The Texas Lawbook and ACC DFW are honoring the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award finalists June 3 at an event at the George W. Bush Institute, which is where the winners will be announced.
“PMG is in a fast-paced business and is experiencing a lot of growth organically and through M&A and Jim is right in the middle of it wearing both a legal hat and a business hat, which can be very challenging,” said Brad Schwartzberg, a partner at Davis + Gilbert in New York. “Not everyone can do that, but Jim does it extraordinarily well.”
Kyle Hooper, a partner at Lidji & Hooper, said he has been impressed by Phillips’ “ability to handle a number of varying corporate disciplines.”
“PMG had a lot of irons in the fire with a lot of complex legal issues to deal with. Jim jumped right in and took the challenge head on,” Hooper said. “He is very well organized and good at delegating responsibility for handling the various issues as they arise.
“Jim has a keen sense for identifying legal issues that PMG will face in the various transactions he is handling and wisely deciding whether the issue is something he can handle internally or if he needs to enlist outside counsel,” Hooper said.
Phillips was born in Dallas and grew up in University Park. He went to Lamplighter for elementary school and then Cistercian for middle school and high school.
His dad is a dentist with a practice in Frisco. His mom was an elementary and middle school teacher turned stay-at-home spouse. While he has an aunt who is a family lawyer and an uncle who practices mostly criminal law, he said they did not play a role in his decision to go to law school.
Entering college, he considered a career in business, but he did an internship at a commercial real estate operation, which caused him to reconsider.
“We got into diligence on a deal I had been working on, and I realized that making the transaction happen intrigued me far more than selling it,” he said. “Working through diligence and documentation was more like solving a puzzle. That intrigued me far more.
“From there, I shifted my focus more towards getting into law school,” he said. “I started interning at a trial consulting firm, and from there it was off to the races.”
Phillips said he “has a soft spot for San Antonio” and chose to go to St. Mary’s University School of Law.
“Because I did not do well in undergrad, the pool of schools that accepted me was not large,” he said. “I knew I wanted to leave DFW for a few years. Ultimately, the decision was between Houston and San Antonio. From talking with numerous attorneys, they spoke highly of St. Mary’s and its ability to create attorneys that were well equipped to actually practice upon graduation.”
As a law student, Phillips cold-called San Antonio attorney Daniel Rutherford, also a St. Mary’s law school graduate, for an internship. He got the job and a lot of hands-on experience.
“There’s nowhere to hide once you move in-house. In order to be effective, you have to be able to adapt to each person and their demands and can’t hide behind a partner or single business point of contact.”
— Jim Phillips
During Phillips’ third year of law school, Rutherford allowed his young mentee to take a lead drafting numerous documents in a seller-financed real estate transaction and to provide the client due diligence on the matter.
“It was a great experience and I am so thankful for the opportunities I was given,” Phillips said.
Phillips graduated from law school in 2013 and spent two years at the Rutherford Law Firm as a lawyer.
In 2016, Phillips moved to Columbus, Ohio, to practice law at Isaac Wiles, a full-service law firm with more than 50 lawyers at the time. During his two years at Isaac Wiles, he significantly expanded his legal skills. He was involved in more than 75 litigation matters, took 25 depositions and served as first and second chair in multiple bench trials and arbitrations.
On the transactional side, he was part of a team that represented private equity in M&A activity.
One major transaction involved the failed merger of two of the largest school service providers in Ohio. The deal was done and then the CFO of the acquiring company discovered some financial concerns about three months into the integration.
“We were hired to un-ring the bell – undo the merger,” he said. “The matter changed from the plan to sue the hell out of the other side to, ‘How do we fix this?’ It had the potential to all fall apart and negatively impact tens-of-thousands of students. But we were able to reengineer and restructure the deal.
“The firm really let me get my hands dirty and get in the weeds in the matter,” he said.
In the summer of 2019, Phillips responded to a LinkedIn inquiry about a lawyer position at PMG.
“I had a desire to be closer to the day-to-day business and strategic decisions,” he said. “Also, the cultural fit with PMG and the exec team was extremely attractive.”
Phillips said the biggest difference between being a lawyer at a firm and in-house is “pace and personalities.”
“On the pace side, the volume of our contracts is well beyond what you’d see in a standard day in the external legal world,” he said. “As far as personalities, there’s nowhere to hide once you move in-house. In order to be effective, you have to be able to adapt to each person and their demands and can’t hide behind a partner or single business point of contact.”
Phillips has achieved many successes during his first two years at PMG. The agency has a 100% close rate on client contracts. He reengineered the master service agreements and statements of work agreements to streamline the client contract processing.
A year ago, he helped PMG’s executive team safely navigate Covid-19-related issues and understand the ever-evolving regulatory landscape.
“As a whole, we have been very fortunate from a Covid-19 perspective,” he said. “However, navigating employee engagement and safety has been the biggest challenge.”
Dykema’s Kratovil, who nominated Phillips for the award, said the finalist showed his worth to the company during the pandemic.
“Jim helped PMG be quick on its feet in responding and adapting to the quickly changing needs of PMG’s clients and their advertising commitments with media vendors and publishers, thus making PMG a valued business partner to these Fortune 500 advertisers,” Kratovil said.
Phillips said he loves his job.
“The biggest misconception about going in-house is that you work less hours,” he said. “I work way more now.”