Margaret Phillips
As director of the Daemen College Paralegal Studies Program, Margaret Phillips oversaw the extensive evaluation process that led to the program recently being granted approval by the American Bar Association. It is one of only two ABA-approved college programs in the Buffalo Niagara region.
Serving as director since the program was established in 2011, Phillips has grown the program’s offerings to include a bachelor’s degree, a 21-credit undergraduate certificate for Daemen students, and a 21-credit post-baccalaureate certificate for those who already hold a four-year degree. She has also developed a service learning course at Daemen that gives paralegal students the opportunity to work on refugee issues.
Phillips, who is working on a textbook on legal skills, recently published articles on trends in undergraduate legal education and the legal profession in the Buffalo Law Journal, Business First, and the Paralegal Educator.
Phillips clerked for a state appellate court before becoming a litigator, focusing primarily on civil matters. She was also a lecturer at the University at Buffalo Law School, where she taught research and writing to first-year law students, and developed a service learning course that brought law students to New Orleans to work with public interest lawyers on Hurricane Katrina recovery.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Barnard College. After a brief stint as a program director at a not-for-profit in Brooklyn, she went on to earn a law degree cum laude from the UB Law School.