Lee Rosenthal was appointed a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division in 1992. Judge Rosenthal serves as the chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Advisory Committee for Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. She was appointed to the Civil Rules Committee by Chief Justice Rehnquist in 1996. She chaired the Class Actions Subcommittee and, in October 2003, became Committee Chair. Judge Rosenthal is also a member of the Board of Editors for the Manual for Complex Litigation, published by the Federal Judicial Center, and a member of the American Law Institute, for which she serves as an advisor for the Aggregate Litigation Project and Transnational Civil Procedure Rules Project. She is also an Observer to The Sedona ConferenceŽ Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1). Judge 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. Before her appointment to the federal judiciary, she practiced with Baker & Botts in Houston, Texas from 1978 to 1992, becoming a partner in 1985.