Lee Hyman Rosenthal (born 1952 in Richmond, Indiana) is a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division.
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Rosenthal received her B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1974 and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1977, where she served on the Law Review.[1]
After her graduation from law school, Rosenthal completed a one-year clerkship with the Hon. John R. Brown, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Rosenthal practiced with the Houston law firm Baker Botts from 1978 to 1992, becoming a partner in 1985.[2]
Rosenthal was nominated to the district court by George H.W. Bush on March 20, 1992, was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 12, 1992, and received her commission on May 13, 1992.[3]
Rosenthal chairs the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, to which she was appointed in 2007 by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.[4] The committee supervises the rule-making process in the federal courts and oversees and coordinates the work of the Advisory Committees on the Federal Rules of Evidence and of Civil, Criminal, Bankruptcy and Appellate Procedure. Prior to 2007, Rosenthal was a member, then chair, of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist appointed Rosenthal to that committee in 1996 and as chair in 2003.[5][6] Under Rosenthal’s leadership, the discovery rules were amended to address the impact of changes in information technology in 2006. In 2007, the entire set of civil rules was edited to be clearer and simpler without changing substantive meaning. The work clarifying and simplifying the rules used in the trial courts won the committee the 2007 “Reform in Law” Award from the Burton Awards for Legal Achievement, an award issued with the Library of Congress and the Law Library of Congress.[7]
Rosenthal is a member of the board of editors for the Manual for Complex Litigation, published by the Federal Judicial Center. She is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and was recently elected to its council. She serves as an adviser for the ALI’s Aggregate Litigation Project and Rules of Transnational Civil Procedure Project.[8][9]
Rosenthal is a member of the Rice University Board of Trustees[10] and a member of the Duke University School of Law Board of Visitors.[11] She is also adjunct faculty at the University of Houston Law Center.[12]
Rosenthal was selected as the trial judge of the year by the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists in 2000 and again in 2006.[13] She has received the Houston Bar Association’s highest bar-poll evaluation for judges three times — in 1999, 2005 and 2007.[14] In the 2007 poll, 80.5% of respondents rated her "outstanding" and 16.5% rated her "acceptable."[15] Rosenthal has been mentioned as a possible nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.[16]