Beth Phillips was nominated by President Barack Obama on June 7, 2011, to a seat vacated by Ortrie D. Smith. She was confirmed by the Senate on March 6, 2012, and received her commission on March 23, 2012.

Before her judicial confirmation Judge Phillips served as the 32nd presidentially-appointed U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Missouri, and the first woman to be appointed to the office. She was sworn into office on Dec. 31, 2009.

Phillips was appointed in August 2008 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the office’s Computer Crimes and Child Exploitation Unit, where she prosecuted child exploitation crimes and served as the Project Safe Childhood Coordinator. She has been a trial attorney during her entire legal career, serving as Assistant Prosecutor in Jackson County, Mo., from June 1997 to August 2001, and in private practice from September 2001 to February 2008 with a Kansas City-area firm, where she represented plaintiffs in medical malpractice, nursing home negligence and product liability lawsuits. As a trial attorney, Phillips has tried approximately 40 cases to verdict, 90 percent of which were jury trials. She served on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA), a non-profit organization that exists to lessen the ill effects of sexual assault and violence through intervention, advocacy, education and treatment. She also served on the board of directors of the Child Protection Center, a child advocacy center that conducts forensic interviews and provides crisis intervention to children who have disclosed sexual abuse and their families.

Phillips is a native Missourian and fourth-generation graduate of the Milan, Mo., school district. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and a master’s degree at the University of Chicago, Phillips earned her juris doctor at the University of Missouri in 1996.