Philip Harris, former GC, Northwestern University.

Northwestern University's general counsel has left his position.

As of Tuesday, Philip Harris was no longer listed as the Evanston, Illinois-based university's general counsel and vice president. Harris' automatic email reply now reads, “I am no longer at Northwestern University.”

Stephanie Graham, who has been with Northwestern's general counsel office since 1993, is now listed as the school's interim GC and associate vice president. She was previously in a deputy general counsel role.

Northwestern declined to comment on Harris' departure. Director of media relations Jon Yates said, “The University does not comment on personnel matters.” Harris' move comes at a financially challenging time for the university, which has cut staff and teaching positions at its Chicago-based law school to combat a budget deficit.

Harris joined the university in January 2016 as GC. Prior to joining Northwestern, Harris was a partner at Jenner & Block in Chicago, where he had been since 2004. He worked on the firm's management committee and co-chaired its products liability and mass tort defense practice.

Harris attended Northwestern as an undergraduate and maintained a relationship with the school after graduating in 1980. When he joined as GC, he had already been a member of Northwestern's board of trustees for 25 years, spending 10 years as chair of the board's student affair committee.

Harris also worked on diversity task forces for the school, chairing the Native American Outreach and Inclusion Task Force.

When his appointment as GC was announced in November 2015, Northwestern president Morton Schapiro said in a press release that “in [Harris'] role as a trustee, we have already benefited from his thoughtful counsel on many issues” and that the school would now have access to that counsel on a daily basis.

Harris' initial responsibilities as GC included providing counsel to Schapiro and the board of trustees, and to direct outside counsel. He succeeded the university's longtime GC, Thomas Cline, who retired after 27 years at Northwestern.

Outside of Northwestern, Harris has served on a number of boards in Chicago, including the Chicago Children's Museum, Children's Memorial Hospital, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Chicago Zoological Society and the Chicago Committee for Minorities in Large Law Firms. He earned his J.D. at the University of Chicago and began his legal career in his home state, Iowa.

Harris' next career move has not been announced.