Lee Rosenthal was appointed a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division in 1992, and became Chief Judge of the Southern District in November 2016. The Fifth Circuit judges have selected her as their District Judge representative on the Judicial Conference of the United States for a 3-year term beginning October 2016. 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 an Observer to The Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1). Judge Rosenthal is a three-time recipient of the Trial Judge of the Year Award from the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists. Before her appointment to the federal judiciary, she was a partner at Baker & Botts in Houston, Texas.