A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Timothy B. Phillips had a career as Navy SEAL before returning to civilian life and earning a J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law.

He spent seven years as an associate at Troutman Sanders, where he worked in the tax and trust and estate groups. He met his wife in an Atlanta gym where he was a regular and she was a personal trainer. He proposed to her in a swirl of white water on the Nantahala River in Western North Carolina. They now have two sons, a toddler and a newborn.