Topic: Phill Kline

Phillip D. "Phill" Kline (born December 31, 1959) is the former district attorney of Johnson County, Kansas, USA. From January 2003 to January 2007, he was the Attorney General of Kansas. Kline, a member of the Republican Party, lost re-election as attorney general to Democratic challenger Paul Morrison on November 7, 2006, 58%-41%. Kline became the district attorney of Johnson County on the day he left office as attorney general, effectively switching jobs with Morrison. Kline then ran for a full term as district attorney, but Steve Howe defeated Kline in the August 5, 2008, Republican primary.

Born in Kansas City, Kansas, Kline grew up in Shawnee, a community on the Kansas side of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. He was the third of five children; his father abandoned the family when Kline was five years old, leaving his mother to be a single parent.

He graduated from Shawnee Mission Northwest High School and subsequently attended the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri, on a partial wrestling scholarship, earning a B.S. in business communications in 1982. During college, he was a news broadcaster for Kansas City, Missouri, AM radio station WHB. Afterward, in order to save money for law school, he worked in public relations for the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun amusement parks in Kansas City. He received his J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1987, and was an Associate Editor for the Kansas Law Review. He entered private practice as an associate with Blackwell Sanders, a large law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, specializing in corporate law. He married his wife, Deborah, in 1989, and settled back in Shawnee, close to where he grew up. The Klines have one daughter, Hillary, born in 1992. They are members of the Central Church of the Nazarene in Lenexa, Kansas.