Phillip Hwee

About

Phillip (“Phil”) Hwee is Special Counsel at Mokri Vanis & Jones’s Bay Area Office. His love for the law began when he was working as a claims representative and later as a claims supervisor at Farmers Insurance Group where he worked with insurance coverage counsel and defense and plaintiff attorneys to resolve claims. Phil’s love for the law grew into a passion, which led him to attend the University of San Francisco School of Law (“USF”), where he earned his Juris Doctorate. Phil’s love for learning prompted him to earn a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (“CPCU”) designation from the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters while he was working at Farmers Insurance.

During his third year of law school, Phil had the privilege and honor of working as an extern for U.S. District Magistrate Judge James Larson (ret.) at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. While attending USF, he also served as a Comments Editor of the USF Law Journal. Phil also worked as a law clerk at a national law firm, which hired him as a summer associate after his second year at USF and later hired him as a litigation associate after he received his California Bar license in December 2000.

Since obtaining his California law license (and New York law license in June 2025), Phil has worked on complex insurance matters and litigation. Phil practices law with a well-rounded approach shaped by having defended small and large companies and represented individual plaintiffs. Phil handles general litigation, premise liability, personal injury cases, construction defects actions, insurance claim disputes, breach of contract actions, commercial litigation, and toxic tort matters. Phil has served as monitoring counsel for international and domestic insurance carriers involving class action lawsuits against directors and officers of major international corporations and fidelity bond claims. He has monitored general liability and personal injury claims for excess insurance carriers. Phil has responded to subpoenas from law enforcement agencies and federal regulators and requests for high-level documents and information requests from plaintiffs in class-actions. Phil volunteered as a Judge Pro Temp at the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco, presiding over small claims and traffic court.

Outside of work, Phil loves spending time with his wife and their son. Phil is an avid runner and loves to travel the world to learn about different people, histories, cultures, and to taste and enjoy the local cuisines.