Andrew Phillips attended Culford School, Uppingham School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read Economics and Law, then qualified as a solicitor in 1964, eventually specialising in charity law. For two years before university he worked as an office boy in his father's law firm in their home town of Sudbury, Suffolk, and after qualifying he worked initially as a salaried partner in two leading law firms in London – Pritchard Englefield and then Lawford & Co. In 1970 he founded commercial law firm "Bates Wells Braithwaite," giving it the same name as his father's firm, though it was an entirely independent entity.