Willie L. Phillips was nominated by Mayor Vincent Gray and confirmed as a PSC Commissioner by the D.C. Council effective July 14, 2014, for a term ending June 30, 2018.
Commissioner Phillips is an experienced regulatory attorney combining over a decade of legal expertise in private practice and as in-house counsel. Commissioner Phillips has an extensive background in the areas of public utility regulation, bulk power system reliability, and corporate governance.
Prior to coming to the PSC, Commissioner Phillips served as Assistant General Counsel for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a not-for-profit international regulatory authority, in Washington, D.C. Before joining NERC, Phillips was an attorney at Van Ness Feldman LLP in Washington, D.C., where he advised clients on regulatory compliance and policy matters and assisted on litigation and administrative proceedings on the Federal and State level. He has also worked as an aide on Capitol Hill.
Commissioner Phillips is a member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, where he serves on the Committee on Electricity, and he is Secretary-Treasurer of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. He is also a member of the Keystone Policy Center Energy Board, Energy Bar Association, and American Association of Blacks in Energy.
Commissioner Phillips has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Montevallo and a Juris Doctor degree from Howard University School of Law. He is also a member of the District of Columbia Bar and Alabama State Bar Association.