Perhaps the circumstances of Phillips’ birth predisposed him to a life of public service. Or perhaps his father – a career public servant who served as New Hampshire’s state treasurer – bore some responsibility.

If not for his astigmatism, Phillips – the youngest of six children – likely would have joined the Air Force, following in the footsteps of his oldest brother, who was a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War.

Instead, the lifelong Concord resident charted his own path.

As a lawyer in private practice for most of his career, Phillips represented clients in product liability and consumer protection cases, often going up against high-powered Boston law firms and even more powerful corporations.

As a Concord School Board member for six years and the board’s clerk for more than three decades, Phillips worked to improve a school district that has educated at least three generations of Phillips kids.

And as chair of New Hampshire’s Parole Board since 2022, Phillips, now 80, has taken on the often unpopular job of ruling on whether incarcerated people are ready to re-enter society.

“Roger is the Atticus Finch of Concord,” wrote Dan Wise, a Concord resident who used to work for the state’s Bar Association. “He is the epitome of a community-minded lawyer who is involved in the civic life of his community.”

Phillips – a member of the first graduating class from the soon-to-be-retired Rundlett Middle School building – got his start as a “summer special” for the Concord Police Department, which paid his way through college and law school in Boston. (During college at Boston University, Phillips lived in a suite formerly occupied by Babe Ruth during his Red Sox playing days.)
Manning his beat outside a bank downtown one morning in the summer of 1965, Phillips noticed a beautiful young woman walk by, and he followed her into Granite State Candy Shoppe, where he introduced himself. The woman, Susan, went on to marry Phillips, and the couple raised three kids together.

After graduating from Suffolk Law in 1969, Phillips got a job at a small law firm in Concord.

In the wee hours of the morning after returning from a welcoming dance for newly sworn-in New Hampshire lawyers, Phillips got a call: there had been a horrible accident on I-93 in Bow. The Caprice station wagon driven by a fellow new attorney who had attended the dance had crossed the median and driven headfirst into a Rambler traveling the opposite way, killing the attorney, his wife, and two of the four occupants of the Rambler.

The accident turned into Phillips’ first – and perhaps most formative – case. The young lawyer sued General Motors, alleging a motor mount in the station wagon had been defective, causing the crash. Three or four years later, Phillips and his team prevailed in a three-week trial.

“That turned out to be the first defective motor mount case ever tried against General Motors,” Phillips said. “It got me interested in personal injury work and trial work, so from that point on, that’s kind of what I liked to do.”

In 1999, Phillips founded his own firm and also ventured into the world of consumer protection, after a longtime client suffered identity theft. He also grew involved with the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Pro Bono program and with the New Hampshire Legal Assistance organization.

“He’s not the stereotype of a lawyer who cares a lot about money,” Wise said. “He’s a lawyer who cares about people.”

In his casework, the law firms representing the corporations Phillips sued would often try to out-muscle his one-man operation, flooding him with discovery documents and demands, or refusing to provide him copies of deposition transcripts.

“It took perseverance,” Phillips said. “What you have to do is just take it a little bit at a time. I didn’t get overwhelmed, and I learned that there are experts out there that don’t charge an arm and a leg.”

At home, it was an approach to life he imparted to his children.

“What would dad do?” Kristin Phillips, his oldest child, said she asks herself when facing a tough situation. “He is who you call when you’re in a crisis. And he’ll stay calm and he’s deliberate.”

At a Parole Board hearing last month, as a fellow board member grilled the potential parolees on their past misdeeds and varying levels of remorse, Phillips presented an air of calmness there, too.

Why would one take on the job of Parole Board chair at the age of 78?
“My father taught me years ago that it’s important to give back to the community,” Phillips said.

Kristin Phillips, a school counselor who learned the same lesson from her father, said there’s another reason too: “This guy needs to work.”
“It’s not popular, but he’s good at it, and he always tries to do something to help,” she said.

As chair of a board that has undergone significant change in recent years, Phillips’ goal is not just to preside over the board, but to continue to improve it. He hopes to implement a more evidenced-based system used in other states that would affect how the board’s decisions are made.

Throughout a 55-years-and-counting career – from the lawsuit against General Motors to his work on the Parole Board – Phillips has been motivated by a fundamental belief that the law is an instrument for good.

“Not only good,” Phillips said, “but a way to level the playing field.”

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.