The likeable and fast-speaking senior partner at Montgomery's McPhillips Shinbaum, LLP has led an eclectic life. A two-time Ivy League champion wrestler while at Princeton, McPhillips missed-out on making the 1972 Olympics by the slimmest of margins. His home in Montgomery was the three-decade residence of Helen Keller's sister. Two doors down you'll find the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum, which he and his wife, Leslie, founded in 1986. In 2002, McPhillips was defeated in his effort to be the Democratic nominee to challenge Jeff Sessions for his United States Senate seat. Last year, on the fiftieth anniversary of his college graduation, McPhillips published his senior thesis – on the subject of the French Communist Party's role in fighting the Nazis in World War II. The book is a current nominee for a literary award in France.

There is an array of interesting sidelines to Julian McPhillips's life. But, at his core, he is the man who the Associated Press called "The Public Watchdog."

Personal family reasons brought McPhillips back to Alabama in 1975. But despite his New York experience, two years at the white shoe firm and two at American Express, McPhillips didn't pursue a corporate law career. Instead he sent a letter to then Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley and asked for a job.

McPhillips tells me that Baxley was "one of the most dynamic state attorney generals in the country at the time." The job applicant had been "reading and hearing good things about the kind of work he was doing in Alabama on the environmental front, the justice front and taking on corrupt politicians." McPhillips says he "found it attractive" and decided to "give it a crack."

Baxley, in the forward to "Only in Alabama," recalls receiving McPhillips's letter. His interest was piqued, he says, by the letter writer's outstanding academic pedigree, job experience and wrestling accomplishments. But what sealed the deal for Baxley – offering McPhillips a job without even an interview – was his desire to return to Alabama. Baxley writes: "He obviously was willing to make sacrifices, financially and otherwise, to help achieve what he thought was in the public good for our state."

McPhillips served as an Assistant Attorney General for two years. In 1978 he headed for private practice and turned to civil rights. Compared to civil rights unrest in the 1960s, by the mid-1970s, McPhillips says that "things had cooled down a little bit, but not a whole lot. It gave me a lot of opportunities to do some real civil rights work."

McPhillips has spent the past 40 years handling a breathtaking number and wide array of cases, including, in addition to civil rights, employment discrimination, criminal defense, police brutality and wrongful death. Some of his cases, he says, didn't get the publicity of those from other states. "In Alabama we're seen as an outpost," McPhillips tells me. "'What else do you expect.'"

McPhillips says that "a lot of people give me credit that they think I deserve – whether I do or not – for opening up employment opportunities for blacks in state government in Alabama." This started with Reynolds v. Alabama Department of Transportation, which charged the DOT with race discrimination in violation of Title VII. McPhillips also succeeded in striking down, as unconstitutional, Montgomery's vagrancy law in Timmons v. Montgomery. He called it "Montgomery's South Africa law because it was used to harass and arrest poor people, mostly black, who could not identify themselves to police officers with a written form of identification." Much more of McPhillips's work is laid out, in a serious but breezy fashion, in his first collection of career anecdotes in the aptly titled "Civil Rights In My Bones."

The title of McPhillips's latest book is attention-getting. But what does "only in Alabama" mean? And what does it infer? McPhillips tackles this on page one: "Of course, bizarre and strange situations can happen anywhere, so some of the chapters of this book might well have occurred in other states. Yet the sum total of the stories I share here illustrates the case that Alabama is unique – delightfully so in many ways, woefully so in many others."

Ultimately it is difficult to precisely define "only in Alabama." It seems to be a you-know-it–when-you-see-it situation. "There are some things that have happened where you say 'oh my gosh, only in Alabama.'"

McPhillips shares the story of representing Tonya Snow for shoplifting a dress from a department store. That doesn't sound too serious. But Ms. Snow was a habitual offender and facing ten to fifteen years if convicted. There is the story of an attractive bartender entrapped by the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board into serving alcohol to a minor. Her face was emblazed on the cover of "Booked," a magazine of mugshots of those charged with crimes in three Alabama counties. The caption read "The most beautiful mug shot of 2014. We don't remember what she did."

McPhillps introduces readers to the Anniston, Alabama law firm of Ghee Draper, where he says that "the only nepotism rule is to practice it." The firm's attorneys include name-partner Doug Ghee, four of his daughters and three sons-in-law. McPhillips also shares the story of Montgomery lawyer Tommy Kirk, whose best-in-the-business reputation has earned him the title "King of the DUIs."

While "Only in Alabama" has plenty of lighthearted stories, many of McPhillips's cases are serious business – such as those involving police misconduct and Alabama's prisons. McPhillips also shares accounts of taking on universities, a behemoth insurer, the United States Air Force and First Amendment fights.

The list of powerful forces that McPhillips takes on is not limited to defendants. In the chapter addressing his fight against an insurer, for employment discrimination, McPhillips's criticism of the federal magistrate judge, for preventing him from taking a key deposition, is remarkably unfiltered. "I'm glad that magistrate judge has moved to Birmingham, because I handle a lot more cases in Montgomery than Birmingham," McPhillips tells me.

The cases recounted in "Only in Alabama" are dizzying in their variety. But they share one common trait -- McPhillips's doggedness in the pursuit of justice.

McPhillips calls Helen Keller an enormous inspiration in his work. "She has encouraged me in all my civil rights work, especially for people with disabilities, for blacks, women, immigrants, and any other group or person wrongfully discriminated against or unjustly treated."

But more than just an admirer, McPhillips has a personal connection to the legendary advocate for the disabled. From the 1920s to 1950s, his Montgomery home, in the city's old Cloverdale neighborhood, was the residence of Helen Keller's sister, Mildred. Helen visited often and had a bedroom that would later belong to McPhillips's daughter. It still includes an eight-foot tall, 500 pound chiffonier that had been transferred from Helen's childhood home.

On the home's porch is a 1955 photograph of the Keller sisters sitting in the spot where the picture now hangs. "I can simply sit out on my front porch," McPhillips says, "lean back in the rocking chair where [Helen] once sat, close my eyes, and reflect upon her."

While sitting on his porch, McPhillips is in close proximity to the former bedroom of another national treasure – F. Scott Fitzgerald. For a six-month period between 1931 and 1932, Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, lived in the 8,500 square foot home located two doors down.

In 1986 the Fitzgerald home was slated to be torn down to make way for the construction of 20 town homes. The McPhillipses purchased the home, transferred it to a non-profit corporation and turned it into the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to Jay Gatsby's creator.

While McPhillips says that he'd "always been interested in Fitzgerald," he freely admits that his decision had something to do with the thought of all those new neighbors. "While I like to act like my interest in the museum was completely altruistic, the truth would be that there were some selfish interests involved too."

Through the growth of Fitzgerald artifacts collected over the years, the museum, known as "The Fitz," now occupies almost 5,000 square feet and also includes two apartments – the Zelda Suite and the Scott Suite -- that are rented as Airbnbs. The suites are beautiful and damn – a steal at $80 a night.

It has been a remarkable life for the lawyer with civil rights in his bones. Julian McPhillips's resume could have taken him anywhere. But he returned to his native Alabama. As the saying goes, home is where the heart is. For McPhillips, it can be found in one more place. "My heart is with the little guy."