Hobbs, James R.

Philip Shakhnis is an associate with McNicholas & McNicholas LLP in Los Angeles, California.  He practices in all areas of civil litigation including employment, catastrophic injury, premises liability and wrongful death.

Mr. Shakhnis has extensive civil litigation experience with a special emphasis on protecting the rights of tenants to habitable dwellings.  Prior to joining McNicholas & McNicholas, Mr. Shakhnis managed his own law firm, the Law Office of Philip Shakhnis, for over eight years.  Mr. Shakhnis achieved significant results for his clients in his previous practice, some of which include:

$985,925 verdict for a mother's exposure to mold in her home that caused a seizure disorder and brain injury.

$630,000 settlement for a lead-poisoned child and his family from an uninhabitable apartment containing lead-based paint hazards and other uninhabitable conditions.

$350,000 settlement for four tenants evicted in violation of the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance on the pretense that the landlord intended to demolish the building.  After the tenants moved out, the landlord re-rented their apartments at a substantially higher market rent. 

Mr. Shakhnis graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1998 with a certificate of completion in the environmental program.  Prior to law school, Mr. Shakhnis worked as an environmental consultant and also spent a year in Israel on a fellowship where he worked at the Israel Union for Environmental Defense. Also while in Israel, Mr. Shakhnis assisted in the formation of EcoPeace (now Friends of the Earth Middle East), a consortium of environmental groups from Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.  Mr. Shakhnis graduated cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1993.

Mr. Shakhnis was born in the former Soviet Union and came as a young boy to Southern California where he was raised. Mr. Shakhnis is fluent in Russian and conversant in Hebrew.

Mr. Shakhnis is admitted to practice before the California State Courts as well as the United States District Court – Central District of California.  He is a member of the Consumer Attorneys of California and the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles.