[3] Phillips provided legal advice to secure charitable status for organisations including the Fairtrade Foundation, the Village Retail Stores Association, Charity Bank and Switchboard (previously the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard) (1974).

Phillips stepped down as senior partner of Bates Wells Braithwaite when he joined the House of Lords in 1998.

He contributed a number of articles for The Guardian[5] and wrote a monthly law column for Good Housekeeping.

[citation needed] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1996 New Year Honours.

He was the unsuccessful Liberal candidate for Essex North East constituency for the first European Parliament elections in 1979.

Phillips was one of six peers on the joint pre-legislative scrutiny committee of the bill that was later passed as the Charities Act 2006.

[11][12] In July 2006 Phillips announced that he would take a permanent leave of absence from the House of Lords (at the time resigning was not possible).

[15] Therefore, Phillips took leave of absence from the House, meaning he was unable to attend or vote, but could return at a month's notice.

[16] In 2014 he delivered the Hinton Lecture for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations entitled "Whither the common good?".

[17] At a Charity Finance Group event in 2012, he decried our "valueless society" and said the voluntary sector was its only hope.