 In 2002, Phillips was appointed "Distinguished Professor of Law" at the Marquette University School of Law, where she is also reported to be producing a first-person memoir of Milwaukee's civil rights movement .She chaired the successful congressional campaign of Gwen Moore, Wisconsin's first African-American and Milwaukee's first female member of the United States House of Representatives.She also served on the board of the Vel Phillips Foundation, a charitable foundation created in 2006, whose mission is "to help establish equality and opportunity for minorities through social justice, education, equal housing opportunities, and jobs."