Even after law enforcement and judicial appointments by President Reagan and national success as a litigator, Distinguished Alumnus Layn Phillips still calls Tulsa home.
"I'm a home grown Tulsa product," Phillips (BS '74, JD '77) said. "Tulsa is home to me, even though I now reside on the West coast."
Phillips is one of TU's most professionally distinguished alumni. His career has been marked by national appointments and designations, including the titles of U.S. district judge and U.S. attorney.
He arrived at the University in 1970 on an NCAA tennis scholarship and swiftly became a campus tennis star, earning the status of tennis captain through his skills and leadership. A fireball on the court, he won 34 singles victories in the 1973-74 season - a record untouched until 1997 - and was the singles champion in the 1974 Missouri Valley Tennis Championship. This impressive record of achievement earned him a spot in the TU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991.
"I always loved sports, and I always loved competition, so naturally I was searching for a profession where I could continue to compete," Phillips said. "Law offered the best opportunity for that. The leadership skills I learned in athletics directly applied to leadership in law and business. I learned perseverance."
Phillips proved he was capable of more than just a crushing backhand swing. He graduated at the top of his business class and was named The Wall Street Journal's Outstanding Economics Graduate.
While living on campus, he joined Sigma Nu fraternity and spent many afternoons playing intramural flag football with his fraternity brothers.
"The brotherhood of my athletic and fraternity colleagues was what I enjoyed most," Phillips said. "And even when we narrowly lost at either tennis or flag football, we had the kind of camaraderie and sportsmanship that allowed us to celebrate after every game, no matter what the result."
Phillips gives much of the credit for his competitiveness to longtime TU tennis coach Don Zimmerman, a former Marine that Phillips described as "someone you wanted to win for every time you stepped on court."
While Phillips may have lost a few tennis matches and flag football games, he's never faltered professionally. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles and served as a federal prosecutor in the Central District of California for four years.
But his pivotal career moment occurred at age 31 with an appointment by President Ronald Reagan as U.S. Attorney in Tulsa, which made him the youngest U.S. Attorney in the nation. For the next three years, he worked closely with law enforcement agencies on some of the highest profile political corruption, white collar and narcotics cases of the era.
At age 34, Reagan favored him with another presidential nomination, this time as a U.S. district judge in Tulsa, and later in Oklahoma City. When he was confirmed by the Senate, he became one of the youngest federal judges ever to be appointed. In that position, he presided over dozens of federal trials in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. He worked with the FBI, IRS and the Secret Service while judging the highest profile cases in the district.
"I very much enjoyed that time as a judge. I felt like I had an opportunity to make Oklahoma a better place to live," he said.
His career is brimming with awards and honors. In 1989 he was named one of 10 Outstanding Young Americans by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce, and for the past several years he has consistently been named to the Southern California "Super Lawyers" list by Los Angeles Magazine - a distinction less than 5 percent of the lawyers in the country have earned.
Today, Phillips specializes in complex civil litigation, internal investigations and alternative dispute resolution at Irell & Manella LLP in Newport Beach, Calif., where he heads up the firm's arbitration and mediation practice. In the last five years alone, he's presided over more than 35 high profile nationwide cases, each of which have settled for more than million.
Phillips earned both his bachelor's degree and his JD from TU, where he also received the Robert Butler Award for Outstanding Legal Writing and graduated with honors, second in his class.
Though several years and many miles have separated Phillips from TU, he continues to hold the University close to his heart through membership with the Golden Hurricane Club. Even while holding the esteemed position of U.S. Attorney, Phillips found time to serve as an adjunct professor at the University from 1984-87. He's also donated time and money to help build the Case Tennis Center, where one of the championship courts bears his name.
"It brings me great happiness to continue assisting in the University's growth and help talented, young students advance professionally," Phillips said.