"When I was a junior at Miami High, a friend was Dade County teen chairman for the March of Dimes," Rosenthal recalled. "She asked me if I would be interested in becoming county chairman for the next year."

She waved a carrot by telling him that he would be entitled to go to a national youth conference at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City. Rosenthal, knowing very little about the organization, made the trip, became the Dade chairman and has been active with the March of Dimes ever since. Ultimately, he was elected to the national board of trustees and served as vice chairman. He also was chairman of the organization's development committee. Term limits forced his retirement from the board three years ago.

"That has been a joy for me," said Rosenthal. "I've traveled all over the United States speaking for the March of Dimes. It's been a wonderful experience. Next week I'll be walking in my 27th March of Dimes Walk-a-thon. When I first became chairman of the Walk-a-thon in Miami it was raising $200,000. When I stopped being chairman several years later we were at $1 million."
Rosenthal was born and raised in Miami, attended Shenandoah Elementary, Citrus Grove Junior High and graduated Miami High in 1969.

"My family has been in South Florida since the turn of the century," he said with obvious pride. "I was born at Doctor's Hospital and grew up at SW 5 Street and 23 Avenue. I'm second generation Miami High."

Rosenthal had a penchant for success and a yen for politics early on, as he was elected president of his class for all three of his high school years. He went on to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, graduating in 1973 with a major in government, and then returned to South Florida to enter the University of Miami law school. He took his law degree in 1976.

"I was always interested in politics and ultimately did become involved in politics and remain involved in various ways," he said. "But, I studied it because I was interested in it."

Rosenthal recently joined the prestigious Coconut Grove law firm of Adorno and Zeder, after an illustrious career with several other firms. He first joined Milledge and Hermalee as a law clerk while still in law school, became a partner and grew the firm to nine lawyers. He departed in 1983 and opened his own practice with Barry Yarchin, building the company to five lawyers and 20 employees before merging with Keith Mack in 1993. His move to Adorno and Zeder, he says, was a natural progression.

"It represented an opportunity for additional resources with people that I know and trust," Rosenthal said. "I started my practice in Coconut Grove and I love being back here."

Throughout his career, Rosenthal has represented South Florida television stations and was a champion of television news, a standard he continues to shoulder even in today's climate of public discontent. He has been involved in several celebrated cases involving the media.

"During the late seventies and into the mid- eighties," he recalled, "this community and this state were very much in the forefront of free press issues and I was very fortunate to be involved in them. I was a part of the original case to put cameras in the courtroom."

One of Rosenthal's first big cases challenged the constitutionality of the Florida wiretap statute regarding two-party consensual recording, a law that effectively outlawed the use of hidden microphones by the news media in investigative reporting. Rosenthal challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, won the case locally and then lost it on appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. Rosenthal petitioned the United States Supreme Court, but only three judges voted to take the case and four were needed.

"Justice Thurgood Marshall, a champion of the First Amendment, was ill at the time," Rosenthal recalled. "We felt like we might have had a shot if Marshall had not been out."

Rosenthal also tasted Miami-Dade politics, twice running for office and winning the Democratic primary, only to lose both times to the Republican standard bearer. He lost a race for a state house seat to four-term incumbent Tom Gallagher in 1978 after an intense yearlong campaign. Two years later, he ran against a school bus driver named John Plummer in the general election.

"His name happened to be spelled the same way as J.L. and Larry Plummer," Rosenthal said. "He never campaigned, he never came out and debated. But, he won the race. I lost and it was a disappointment, certainly. That was the last time I ran for office."

Rosenthal says the movie Distinguished Gentleman was based on that 1980 political race.

He adds that the experience didn't sour him on politics, that he continued active in the arena and was the only three-time president of the old Tiger Bay Political Club.

Rosenthal also served for 10 years on the Miami-Dade County Public Health Trust board of directors, working a two-year term as vice chairman and another as chairman. He is on the board of governors of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and organized the Youth Summit on Ethics last year that saw 600 high school students come together for a daylong seminar. He continues to be involved on the Chamber's ethics committee and chairs the special projects committee.

Rosenthal, his wife Debra and their two children -- Michael, 11, and Benjamin, 9 ­ are active in the Temple Beth Am congregation, where Rosenthal finds the time to teach basketball.