Alex Phillips

Partner

Overview

I love litigating. From complaint drafting, to brief writing, to depositions, and trial, I immerse myself in the process because I enjoy it. For me, winning is not about taking a “good” case with good facts and achieving a good outcome. It is about taking the good and making it great and making the great exceptional. I bring this attitude to every case I litigate because it makes a difference, and the results I’ve achieved with my team reflect that. And while I don’t always win, I always play to win and I choose to play for the good guys: consumers, patients, employees, and small businesses. Our clients are plaintiffs confronting some entity that wronged them but will not make it right, often defending itself with resources that dwarf what any one client will ever own. But because I believe committed advocacy can even the odds, I’ve devoted my career to doing just that.

Education

University of Wisconsin Law School, J.D.
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, B.A. Political Science

Court Admissions

Wisconsin State Court
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin

Experience

I am a partner at Strauss Borrelli and I focus my practice on complex litigation and privacy class actions. As technology advances so too do the opportunities to misuse it, whether that means tracking you without your consent, mismanaging your data, or using it for a purpose you never agreed to. Our firm specializes in enforcing the rights at stake in those cases, and we take pride in leading cases that define and reshape how the law protects privacy. Those cases include:

Data Breach. If a company collects your data, they accept duties to safeguard it. That may include anything from your health records, to your financial information, to your Social Security number. If the company fails to fulfill those duties by leaving vulnerabilities in their systems, your data may be exposed and stolen. We represent the consumers, employees, and patients impacted by those breaches to help protect their identities and ensure their data is protected.

Right of Publicity. No one wants to see their name and face in an advertisement without their permission, and there are laws designed to stop companies from doing so. Yet in the digital age, companies have disregarded those laws and increasingly marketed people’s data without their consent, using their names and faces to advertise that data. We prosecute cases to uphold the law and stop those practices.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Telemarketing annoys people at its best and harasses them at its worst. The companies that use telemarketing are supposed to follow strict laws governing the practice, including by respecting Do-Not-Call registries, honoring a consumer’s demand not to be called, and never robocalling them without their consent. We represent the consumers annoyed and harassed by the companies that fail to follow those rules.

Consumer Fraud. A consumer fraud case arises whenever a company charges consumers for a good or service the company knows it cannot deliver as advertised. Whether it’s inflated premiums or hidden bank fees, these practices skim off the top on the hope that the consumer won’t notice or will give up when the company refuses to reimburse them. We represent the consumers cheated by these schemes, seeking to reimburse them for their losses and to stop the fraud from happening again.

Memberships and Community Involvement

Leadership Greater Madison, Member
Downtown Madison Inc., Member
Dane County Bar Association
Literacy First, Tutor
The Beacon, Volunteer

Outside Interests

Spending time with my wife
Raising Piper and Niko
Running around
Reality TV

Representative Matters

Flores v. AON Corp., 2023 IL App (1st) 230140, ¶ 27. Data Breach. Co-authored an appeal that set a realistic standard for establishing standing in data breach cases and established duties to protect data under tort, contract, and statutory principles, reversing the lower court’s order.

Reetz v. Advocate Aurora Health, Inc., 405 Wis. 2d 298, 310, 983 N.W.2d 669, 675 (Ct. App. 2022). Data Breach. Co-authored an appeal that established a data breach victim’s standing to sue under tort, reversing the lower court’s order.

McGrath RentCorp Data Breach Lit. 4:22-cv-00490-AGT (N.D. California). Data Breach. Participated in litigation and settlement that achieved $2,100 payments to all settlement claimants.

Numrich Gun Part Data Breach Lit. 1:22-cv-00675-DNH-CFH (N.D. New York). Data Breach. Defeated a motion to dismiss on standing grounds, arguing that a “disclosure of personal information” alone is enough to confer standing, leading to settlement. I am co-lead class counsel.

HelloFresh TCPA Lit. 1:19-cv-12608-WGY (D. Massachusetts). TCPA. I participated in litigating a TCPA class action against HelloFresh, achieving the largest TCPA settlement in Massachusetts history.

Doe v. Redeemer Health, No. 23-2405, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177399, at *10 (E.D. Pa. Sep. 28, 2023). Data tracking. Succeeded in moving to remand a data-tracking case from federal court, authoring all briefs alone. That decision, along with two others, are on appeal in the Third Circuit and I co-authored our appellee brief resisting the appeals.

Virgin Pulse Inc. v. Schneider Enter. Res. LLC, No. 20-C-1691, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168337, at *3 (E.D. Wis. Sep. 19, 2022). Contract breach litigation. Won summary judgement on liability for a contract breach causing our client approximately $1 million in damages under a vendor contract, leading to settlement.

CJS Sols. Grp., LLC v. Mary Clowers & Cowboy & Schatz, LLC, No. 1:21-CV-223-RP, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138349, at *6 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 2, 2022). Tortious interference/corporate espionage litigation. Defended a consultant and her new employer from claims they stole confidential information and trade secrets from a previous employer. I succeeded in moving to dismiss the new employer on jurisdictional grounds and excluding plaintiff’s lost profits expert from testifying as unqualified, preventing plaintiff from supporting its $50 million damages claim. The case was eventually dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.

BHP, Inc. d/b/a Global Power Components vs. Independent Electric Supply, Inc. d/b/a, Milwaukee County Case Number 2019CV003361. Contract litigation. First-chaired a two-week court trial seeking contract payments on manufactured equipment, achieving order awarding all requested relief.