About Phillip J
Phillip J Wu began his academic path at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a B.S. in Business Administration in 2007. He continued studies in international business at the University of California, Irvine in 2006 and pursued Mandarin studies at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, earning a certificate in 2009. He completed his J.D. at the University of San Francisco School of Law in 2014.
Wu's early legal experience threaded through public-interest and government settings. He worked as a policy research intern at the Organization for Refuge Asylum & Migration in 2011, then took on a range of internships and clerkships focused on municipal and nonprofit practice. In 2012 he served as a law clerk for the AIDS Legal Referral Panel and held legal internships with the Oakland Unified School District and the Transportation Security Administration. The following year he clerked with the Oakland City Attorney's Office and served as a law fellow with the Peralta Community College District.
In 2014 Wu moved into firm practice. That year he was a post-bar law clerk and later an associate at Shorb & Connor, LLP. Those roles appear alongside his earlier public-service placements and suggest a blend of agency-side and private-firm experience early in his career. He is admitted to practice in California and is listed as having jurisdictional access to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Outside the office, Wu has maintained ties to several professional communities. He has been a member of the Tom Homann LGBT Law Association since 2014. He also belongs to BALIF (Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom) and Taiwanese American Professionals (TAP), both memberships beginning in 2010. These affiliations reflect long-standing engagement with regional legal networks and community organizations.
Wu’s record shows work on immigration-related policy research, civil legal services through nonprofit clinics, and municipal legal work for city and education clients. His placements at organizations that handle refugee issues, public education law, and health-related legal services indicate familiarity with regulatory and administrative processes as well as client-facing advocacy.
He maintains an office in San Diego near Balboa Park and handles matters arising in California and in federal appellate proceedings before the Fourth Circuit. He currently practices in San Diego and focuses his work on civil and administrative matters in those jurisdictions.
