Phillip Crawford Jr. is a retired attorney from the New York bar. He attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine from which he graduated with a B.A. in English in 1985. At Bates he was President of the Gay-Straight Alliance, and in 1983 spearheaded a campaign to oust military recruiters from the campus for their discriminatory policies against the LGBT community. He attended George Washington University Law School where he was a Notes Editor for the Law Review. After graduating with highest honors as class salutatorian in 1988 he clerked for Chief Judge Judith W. Rogers on the D.C. Court of Appeals, and then with Judge George H. Revercomb on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He practiced law for fifteen years in New York City including several years with the plaintiffs' class action bar, and then retired after exposing his concerns about billing practices. Professor Lester Brickman characterized him in "Lawyer Barons" as a "whistle blower." Crawford is the author of "The Mafia and the Gays" about the historic role of organized crime in LGBT nightlife.