John Davisson Phillips
A.B., West Virginia University, 1928, L.L.B.University of Oxford, 1930-32
John Phillips was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia. At West Virginia University, he was president of the student body and of his freshman law class and a member of Sphinx, Mountain, Phi Kappa Psi, Phi Delta Phi, and the track team.
He received a Rhodes Scholarship in 1930 and spent two years at Oxford. Upon his return to West Virginia in 1932, he was admitted to the bar.
Phillips served as president of the West Virginia Bar Association in 1955 and was a member of the West Virginia State Board of Law Examiners for twenty years. He served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II and was discharged with the rank of captain. A resident of Wheeling, West Virginia, he retired after sixty years in the practice of law.