A Desire for Service

Two pivotal moments pointed Jerina Phillips down the path of justice.

The first came when she was 12 and her parents transferred her from an East St. Louis public school to a Catholic private school. “It was eye-opening,” Phillips says. “In East St. Louis, I saw firsthand a lot of kids living in poverty. There were a lot of failing schools. … The differences between my old school and my new school were stark: classroom size, access to technology, new books. I thought, ‘This is really unfair that I have computers in my new classrooms, and we didn’t even have actual books in my old school for a lot of my classes.’ This ignited a sense of justice.”

The second came at New Orleans’ Loyola University, where Phillips planned to study sociology as the first step toward law school. In August 2005, she was on campus for orientation, but Hurricane Katrina’s impending landfall forced her back to St. Louis. “When I returned to New Orleans that spring, I was able to get involved in a lot of the work to rebuild New Orleans,” she says. “I spent a lot of time around families who had lost everything. Still, these people, and many others, were trying to rebuild. That experience furthered my desire for service and giving back.”

After her first year at Saint Louis University School of Law, Phillips interned with the public defender’s office. “I was in the courtroom every day working with lawyers who were really passionate and had a real sense of justice,” she says. “But the work was emotionally taxing. Seeing kids and circumstances that were very unfortunate day after day was hard—especially seeing kids who made mistakes that maybe some of my own friends made and didn’t get caught and were able to go on and live their lives. This was my first indication that I needed to find something else.”

At a clerkship with the Missouri Supreme Court the next summer, she found it. “I realized, ‘Oh, there’s a civil practice, and there’s so many things that you can do within the legal profession while still fighting outside of it.’ I realized I didn’t have to be a criminal defense attorney doing public-interest work; I could do civil, I could volunteer, I could join boards, and still make the change I want.”

Phillips says she honors that 12-year-old kid whose eyes were opened to issues of access via her 10 years of work on the board of directors for the Greater East St. Louis Community Fund. “This organization gives high school seniors from my community of East St. Louis college scholarships,” says Phillips, who benefited from the fund herself to go to Loyola. “Being able to give back in this way is wonderful. I really enjoy the work because we get to meet the folks we give scholarships to.”

She’s also devoted the last decade to board work for the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, founded by the six-time Olympic medalist who also grew up in East St. Louis. “This organization is completely transforming my hometown, providing children high-quality after-school programs, STEM programming, state-of-the-art recreational spaces,” she says. “You can feel the magic any given day when you walk into the center. … I help ensure the foundation is thriving and is sustained—whether that’s raising money, advising on new programming, or ensuring the organization’s operational model is sound.”

Phillips’ community work and legal background often intersect. “There are times when folks come to me because they know me through the work I’ve done for East St. Louis,” she says. There are also times when the issues she’s fighting for outside of her law firm come knocking, like a recent case she took on behalf of a group of early childhood educators who were having difficulties obtaining state funding; litigation is ongoing.

“This is not work that you see law firms, especially of the size of my law firm in the Midwest, doing,” Phillips says. “It was really important to me to fight on behalf of folks who are doing great work in the early education space. It is among the most important work I’ve done. Cases like this, and my community work, this is how I live out my earliest dreams to do good.”

Looking To Get Involved?

Greater East St. Louis Community Fund: estlfund.org/contact-us

Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation: jjkfoundation.org/volunteer-opportunities