When Jake Phillips, ’03, was deciding which law schools to apply to, his parents had opinions. His father, a lawyer himself and a name partner in a small firm in their hometown of Gallatin, Tennessee, thought Jake might be overreaching in considering UChicago. “But I wanted a place that would put me to the test,” Jake recalled, “and I knew that Chicago was the place to get that.”

Twenty-five years later, it’s hard to imagine a challenge that might be too much for Phillips, who has clerked at the US Supreme Court, served in the Department of Justice and the White House, and today leads the legal department at one of America’s largest and best-known industrial companies.

Phillips is currently the senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary at GE Aerospace, America’s largest manufacturing company. When he joined GE in 2023, his first six months were focused on the launch of GE Aerospace as a standalone aerospace company, following the successful spinoff of GE’s power business. “Separating a company that had been built over 130 years was a task of incredible complexity, but it has enabled the board and management of each company to focus on its core business, with great results,” Phillips said.

Before GE, Phillips was deputy counsel to President Biden, serving as the legal advisor to the National Security Council. Phillips joined the NSC just as Russia was preparing its invasion of Ukraine and spent a significant portion of his time helping to build the legal framework for US support to Ukraine. “As much as I have learned and grown from so many other experiences, my time at the NSC was the most challenging and educational chapter of my life,” he said.

Phillips was with Boeing for 13 years before his NSC role. Although much of his time was spent in Boeing’s defense business, he devoted his last two years to leading Boeing’s response to litigation and investigations stemming from the 737 Max aircraft accidents in 2018 and 2019. “We wanted to get it right, see justice done, and help a proud company move forward. It was very much one thing at a time, one day at a time,” he recalled.

In the years before he joined Boeing, Phillips served in the US Department of Justice at the Office of Legal Counsel and then as senior counsel to the deputy attorney general; he was an associate at Kirkland & Ellis; and he was on the legal staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“You could say that I took a chance on myself when I came to the Law School, but that bet has paid off far more than I could have imagined. Meeting Sheila would have been enough for that to be true, but the friendships I made there have enriched my life, and every single day the skills and perspectives I gained help me with whatever professional challenges I might be facing.”

Right after graduating from the Law School, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and then for US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. “Judge Luttig had a formative impact on my career, not only because he made me a better lawyer, but also because he later left the judiciary to become the GC at Boeing and encouraged me to join his team there,” Phillips said. “And what has been said about Justice Scalia’s chambers is true—it was an exhilarating, freewheeling world of ideas where the justice expected his law clerks to challenge his thinking and was more than happy to return fire when he spotted flaws in your argument.”

Phillips and his wife, Sheila Kadagathur, ’03 (spotlighted in the Fall 2025 issue), met at the Law School. She is a partner at Hostetter Strent, much lauded for her family law practice. They have four sons.

“You could say that I took a chance on myself when I came to the Law School, but that bet has paid off far more than I could have imagined. Meeting Sheila would have been enough for that to be true, but the friendships I made there have enriched my life, and every single day the skills and perspectives I gained help me with whatever professional challenges I might be facing.”