US District Judge Rosenthal joins Rice Board of Trustees

US District Judge Rosenthal joins Rice Board of Trustees

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal has been elected to the Rice University Board of Trustees this week. She has served the Houston division of the Southern District of Texas since 1992.
 
“Lee Rosenthal has outstanding experience in public service, the highest stature as a jurist and savvy judgment,” said Board Chairman Jim Crownover, a 1965 Rice graduate. “Her insight and experience will richly benefit the university and everyone we serve.”
 

	LEE ROSENTHAL

In addition to presiding over a busy docket, Rosenthal chairs the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, to which she was appointed in 2007 by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. The committee supervises the rule-making process in the federal courts, overseeing and coordinating the work of the Advisory Committees on the Federal Rules of Evidence and of Civil, Criminal, Bankruptcy and Appellate Procedure. Before that, Rosenthal was a member, then chair, of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Rosenthal to that committee in 1996 and as chair in 2003. Under Rosenthal’s leadership, in 2006 the discovery rules were amended to address the impact of changes in information technology, and 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.
 
“We are truly fortunate to have Judge Rosenthal as the newest member of our board of trustees,” said Rice President David Leebron. “She has a reputation of being a thoughtful, dedicated and decisive leader, and she is widely known as one of the most outstanding judges in the country. Her experience and judgment will be invaluable to the university as we continue to pursue our high ambitions as an international research university.”
 
Rosenthal has several connections to Rice. Her mother, Ferne Hyman, was assistant university librarian at Fondren Library until her retirement in 1999. Her father, Harold M. Hyman, is the William P. Hobby Professor Emeritus of History at Rice. Her husband, Gary Rosenthal, is a member of Leebron’s President’s Advisory Board.
 
The Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists has twice selected Rosenthal as trial judge of the year — in 2000 and 2006. She has received the Houston Bar Association’s highest bar-poll evaluation for judges three times — in 1999, 2005 and 2007.
 
Rosenthal is a member of the board of editors for the Manual for Complex Litigation, published by the Federal Judicial Center. She is also 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 Transnational Civil Procedure Rules Project.
 
Rosenthal received her law degree in 1977 from the University of Chicago, where she also did her undergraduate study. She was nominated by President George H.W. Bush for a new district court judge position for the Houston division of the Southern District in 1992 and confirmed by the Senate that same year. Before her appointment to the federal judiciary, Rosenthal practiced with Baker Botts LLP in Houston from 1978 to 1992. She became a partner of the firm in 1986. She was a law clerk to John Brown, chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, from 1977 to 1978.