Paul Phillips is an experienced regulatory lawyer who helps highly regulated entities navigate through complex jurisdictional and administrative thickets to reach successful results. Paul gives particular focus to the telecommunications industry, which has faced rapid regulatory swings in recent years with the FCC’s deregulation and re-regulation of broadband Internet services.
Paul has extensive experience with licensing, compliance and enforcement issues, business formations and dissolutions, mergers and acquisitions, consumer protection and customer service issues, and commercial contract negotiations. He has successfully litigated a variety of utility cases before state agencies and courts.
Paul is also an active member of Primmer’s Government Relations team and has crafted legislative solutions for his utility clients in matters of alternative regulation and deregulation, state broadband and universal service funding programs, and the reform and restructuring of state regulatory agencies.
Paul served as outside General Counsel to the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (2021-2024). He previously served as Chair of the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights (2015-2018).
- New Hampshire Bar
- New Hampshire Supreme Court
- Vermont Bar
- Vermont Supreme Court
- Northeastern University School of Law, J.D.
- Williams College, B.A., cum laude
- In re Champlain Broadband, LLC, et al., ___ Vt. ___, 227 A.3d 496 (Vt. 2020) Paul represented the City of Burlington, Vermont, in the sale of Burlington Telecom to Champlain Broadband, LLC. In a unanimous decision, the Vermont Supreme Court ended more than 10 years of regulatory turmoil and agreed that the sale of the once-troubled utility would promote the public good of the State of Vermont.
- Petition of Dixville Telephone Company to Discontinue Operations, Docket No. DT 18-175, Order No. 26,235 Conditionally Granting Petition (N.H. Pub. Utils. Comm’n, Apr. 22, 2019) In a case of first impression nationally, Paul represented an incumbent local exchange carrier in gaining regulatory approval to discontinue its operations. The case represented the first-ever application of the FCC’s new discontinuance rule, 47 C.F.R. § 63.71(g) (eff. July 9, 2018)
- Petition of Waitsfield-Fayston Telephone Company, Inc., Docket No. 7798, Final Order (Vt. Public Service Board, Apr. 27, 2012) In a case of first impression nationally, Paul successfully demonstrated that the changes in federal revenue required by the FCC’s Transformation Order (FCC 11-161) created sufficient adverse economic impact on a rural telecommunication company that a suspension of local-interconnection obligations was warranted under 47 U.S.C. § 251(f)(2).
- Chair, New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights (2015-2018)
- Commissioner, New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights (2014-2018)
- Chair, Town of Plymouth (NH) Energy Commission (2010-13)
- Chair, Permit Review Committee, City of Montpelier (Vt.) (2003-04)
- Chair, Advisory Committee on Civic Education to the Vermont Commissioner of Education (1998-2006)
- New Hampshire Bar Association
- Vermont Bar Association
- Electric Cooperative Bar Association
- National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
- Technology Association of New England
- “NESCOE: Making Regional Energy Project Decisions Behind Closed Doors?” New Hampshire Bar News; Sept. 17, 2014
- “Tough Times for Landlines: Sweeping Changes Leave Rural Carriers at Crossroads”; New Hampshire Bar News; Sept. 20, 2013
- Law Clerk, Vermont Supreme Court, Hon. Ernest W. Gibson, III
- New Hampshire Bar Association Pro Bono Honor Roll, 2014
- Town of Plymouth Distinguished Service Award, 2013
- Martindale-Hubbell® BV® Peer Review RatedT™
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