Kent D. McPhail is Senior Partner with default servicing law firm McPhail Sanchez LLC based in Mobile, Alabama, and member of the Legal League Advisory Council. McPhail graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1985 with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Business Administration. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1988.
After graduating, McPhail became in-house counsel for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi, after which he practiced with a private creditor law firm for three years. In 1994, McPhail became one of the founding partners of the law firm of Dumas & McPhail, which underwent a name change in 2023 to McPhail Sanchez LLC.
McPhail is licensed under the Mississippi Bar, the Florida Bar, the Alabama Bar, and the Tennessee Bar, and is admitted to practice in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and all U.S. District Courts in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Tennessee.
McPhail, along with Stephen Hladik, Legal League Advisory Council Chair and Partner with Hladik, Onorato & Federman LLP, co-hosts “What the M,” a podcast focusing on the complex issues faced by those in the mortgage servicing industry, including trends in the industry, regulatory oversight, technological advances, and much more.
McPhail took part in the recent Legal League Spring 2025 Servicer Summit at the Hotel Crescent Court in Dallas, a gathering of the nation’s elite financial services law firms, discussing default policies, procedures, and emerging issues with leading mortgage servicing executives.
McPhail, along with Ryan Bourgeois, Partner (General Counsel/Compliance Officer) of BDF Law Group; Michael Merritt, SVP, Customer Care & Mortgage Default with BOK Financial; and Christopher Phillips, Senior Managing Attorney of the Judicial Division with Schneiderman & Sherman P.C., helped lead the event’s Roundtable Discussions, a series of interactive Q&A sessions focusing on the topics of CFPB Shift Preparation, Housing Affordability, and Foreclosures.
“It’s a forum that works exceptionally well because you have around five different tables together, and I am always fascinated by how each separate table will come up with thoughts about the issues that I had not even thought about,” said McPhail of the Spring Servicer Summit Roundtable Discussions. “Some of the topics we went over, including the new payments supplement program … there are a lot of challengers that servicers and law firms will face, particularly as it relates to bankruptcies and whether or not these supplements are done pre-bankruptcy or during a Chapter 13.”
MortgagePoint had a chance to chat with McPhail during the Spring Servicer Summit to discuss the latest trends in the servicing and bankruptcy spaces, forging strong partnerships, and enriching industry knowledge, and his experiences from this year’s Legal League Spring 2025 Servicer Summit. You can view the full interview with McPhail below.
For more from Five Star and Legal League, be sure to mark your calendars for the 2025 Five Star Conference & Expo, set for September 29-October 1 in Dallas.
