W&L Welcomes New Trustee Joelle James Phillips ’95L Phillips was sworn in as a trustee on Feb. 7.

Office of Communications and Public Affairs
February 7, 2025

Joelle James Phillips ’95L joined the Washington and Lee University Board of Trustees on Feb. 7, at the board’s winter meeting in Lexington, Virginia.

Phillips earned a BFA magna cum laude in theatre arts from Birmingham-Southern College and graduated summa cum laude from W&L’s School of Law. She retired from AT&T Tennessee in December 2023 as the company’s longest-serving president.

Phillips trained as an actress and, after beginning her career in theater, was drawn to the law. As a law student at W&L, Phillips was a member of the Law Review and named Order of the Coif.

Following her graduation from law school, Phillips began her law practice as a clerk for United States Court of Appeals Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale. She went on to practice as a litigator specializing in business bankruptcy at law firms in Atlanta and Nashville. She joined the in-house legal team at BellSouth in 2001, where her portfolio included regulatory and legislative policy matters, as well as contract disputes, labor and employment issues, and rights-of-way and construction permitting.

She took the helm as AT&T Tennessee’s president in 2013. As AT&T’s most public-facing Tennessee executive, she navigated the company through an era of rapid changes in information technology, the communications services marketplace and public policy at the local, state and federal levels. She was also responsible for managing AT&T’s extensive philanthropic and community engagement efforts in Tennessee.

Phillips is heavily involved in community engagement and has a particular reverence for the power of education. She was previously a board member for the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation and the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, as well as a guest lecturer as Executive in Residence at both the University of Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business and the University of the South’s Babson Center. Phillips has also provided board service for the Tennessee Future Farmers of America Foundation, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the Tennessee Business Leadership Council, the Tennessee Business Roundtable and numerous Nashville-area organizations.

Phillips resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Brant Phillips ’97L, who practices law and chairs the 100-attorney litigation practice group at Bass Berry & Sims PLC.