Judge Guthrie retired from the Federal Court after 27 years of presiding over civil and criminal cases in the Eastern District of Texas. Before that she practiced law in Austin, Houston and Tyler. She did not start out her career to be a lawyer. She used her degree in English to become an editor of scholarly books and papers for the American Council on Education in Washington, DC. Circumstances led her to a job at the Texas State Capitol which led her to a job as a lobbyist with a law firm which led her to law school and the rest is history.