Obituaries

Stephanie Phillips, professor emerita of law and a pioneer in the field of critical race theory, died Aug. 15 at her home in suburban Rochester. She was 72.

During more than three decades of teaching at the School of Law, Phillips also pursued intellectual interests that included African American legal history and mindfulness and meditation — a personal passion that she grew into a wildly popular course on self-care in legal practice.

“Stephanie was a pioneer in critical race theory and co-organized the first Critical Race Theory workshop, held in 1989 in Madison, Wis.,” Dean S. Todd Brown wrote to members of the law school community in announcing her passing. “More recently, she collaborated with Professor Athena Mutua to teach a series of critical race theory seminars focused on the social construction of race and the intersections between race, gender and sexuality. … She incorporated mindfulness meditation into her coursework, studied the efficacy of mindfulness techniques for improved cognitive function, and led meditation groups at the law school as a service to her students and colleagues.”

A Buffalo resident from childhood, Phillips graduated from Buffalo Seminary before attending Antioch College in Ohio. She returned to Buffalo to earn a bachelor’s in business administration from UB, then earned a JD from Harvard.

Before joining UB Law in 1989, she clerked in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit; taught law at the University of Miami; and practiced securities law for five years with a Miami firm.

As generations of UB law students prepared for both the intellectual rigors of law practice and the toll it can take on lawyers’ physical and emotional health, they were inspired to disciplines of self-care in Phillips’ Mindfulness and Professional Identity courses. She deepened her thinking about the benefits of mindful practice through a sabbatical at Buffalo’s Himalayan Institute, and through certification by the Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training Program in Berkeley, Calif. She also co-founded the Mindfulness Alliance of Western New York.

Phillips retired from the School of Law in 2022.