Marilyn E. Phelan, J.D. (with honors), University of Texas School of Law; Ph.D., Texas Tech University (named the Outstanding Doctor of Business Administration); is the Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita at Texas Tech University. In addition to teaching for nearly 35 years in the Texas Tech University School of Law, Phelan served as a Professor of Museum Sciences and also served as General Counsel for Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

Marilyn E. Phelan is the author or co-author of seventeen books and over fifty articles or book chapters on laws relating to taxation, nonprofit organizations, and museums. Two books she has authored for Thomson/Reuters (Westlaw) on laws relating to nonprofit organizations--Representing Tax-Exempt Organizations and a three-volume treatise, Nonprofit Enterprises: Law and Taxation-- are on-line at Westlaw. Phelan was also the co-author of a casebook published by Thomson Reuters--Nonprofit Organizations Law and Policy. She published an article, Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural Property and International Legislation and Treaties Protecting Cultural Property for Thomson Reuters, American Law Reports International. Thomson Reuters has published several of her articles on tax issues related to nonprofit organizations in some of its newsletters for its Mertens Law of Federal Taxation. Thomson Reuters has named Phelan a West Key Author, and has featured her in one of its Key Author of the Month issues of its Legal Current publications. Phelan also was the co-author of another casebook, Art and Museum Law, that was published by Carolina Academic Press. One of her books on laws relating to museums was listed by the Smithsonian as one of a dozen books every museum should own. Her book on laws related to museums, Museum Law, A Guide for Officers, Directors, and Counsel, was published in 2014 by Rowman-Littlefield. She co-authored two later books--Sovereign Immunity Law and Hospital and Physician Law, both published in by Vandeplas Publishing, one in 2019 and the last in 2022.

Phelan is also a co-author of two faith-based books published by Resource PublicationsIn His Footsteps: The Early Followers of Jesus, published in 2021, and Biblical Truths and the Plan of Salvation, published in 2023.

In her teaching career, Phelan received numerous teaching awards, including the President's Excellence in Teaching Award; President's Academic Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service; and the Grover E. Murray Award for Excellence in Higher Education. The American Bar Association Section of Business Law, Nonprofit Committee, awarded her an ABA Outstanding Nonprofit Academic Award for contributions and achievements in the field of nonprofit law. Phelan was a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and was certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization as Specialist in Tax Law.

Phelan is a life member of both the American Law Institute and a Texas and life Commissioner to the Uniform Law Commission.  Phelan served for nine years on the Legal Affairs Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), and as a member of the committee, prepared a mediation procedure for individuals or countries making claims to stolen or illegally exported objects in museums' collections. The President of ICOM published a Statement in 2006 in which she credited Phelan for her work on the committee and referred to Phelan as a leading international authority on museum and cultural property law.

Phelan has lectured on cultural property laws, laws relating to nonprofit organizations, and ethics in government at several universities in the United States as well as internationally--at Vienna, Austria; Oxford, England; Seoul, Korea; Monterrey, Mexico; Mexico City, Mexico; Beijing China; and Toronto, Canada. Phelan has served as Chair, Co-Chair and Vice-Chair of the Cultural Property Committee of the Section of International Law and Practice of the American Bar Association. She served as Program Chair for many programs in New York and Washington, D.C. on stolen and illegally exported art and cultural property and was an expert witness in a successful lawsuit filed by heirs of a Holocaust victim for recovery of a Picasso painting stolen during World War II. Phelan has served as an ABA representative in a UN briefing trip in Geneva, Switzerland and has chaired the International Taxation Committee of the ABA Section of International Law.

Phelan and her husband, Harold Phelan, a retired judge, have three children: Judge Pat Phelan, Dr. Scott Phelan who is a structural bridge engineer with a Ph. D from M.I.T, and Kimberly Mayfield, an attorney. They have eight grandchildren, all of whom have degrees with three having advanced degrees, two are attorneys and one has a master’s in counseling. Three grandchildren are working toward advanced degrees.