Philip Banks is by any measure a Liberian legal luminary. He served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia as well as the Justice Minister and Attorney General of Liberia. Banks was also the Director of Research and of the Legal Department of the National Constitution Commission that drafted the 1986 Constitution, which is now the basic law of Liberia. He also previously served as the Dean of the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law of the University of Liberia, and as Chairman of the Law Reform Commission of Liberia. Banks holds a Master of Law Degree with Honors from Yale Law School in the United States, as well as a Bachelor of Law Degree (Magnum Cum Laude) from the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology (Cum Laude) from the University of Liberia. His scholarly endeavors include leading the editing and indexing of 14 volumes of the Liberian Law Reports featuring decisions of the Supreme Court of Liberia for the period 1979 to 1999, and 2001 to 2003. Additionally, he was the lead editor of five volumes of the Liberian Revised Code of Law, a compilation of various statutes.