President Ronald Reagan appointed Deanell Reece Tacha to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in December of 1985, where she currently serves as a federal appellate judge. Judge Tacha became Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit on January 1, 2001.

Named a White House Fellow in 1971, she was assigned as special assistant to Secretary of Labor James D. Hodgson. The following year, at the conclusion of her fellowship, she joined the law firm of Hogan and Hartson as an associate in Washington, D.C. Two years later, she returned to Kansas to engage in private practice. In the fall of 1974, she joined the University of Kansas School of Law faculty and in 1981 was elevated to the university position of Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. In 1992, Judge Tacha received the KU Alumni Association’s Fred Ellsworth Medallion for extraordinary service to the university and received its most prestigious award, the Distinguished Service Citation, in 1996.

Judge Tacha was appointed as a United States Sentencing Commissioner from 1994 to 1998. She chaired the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association from 1995 to 1996. From 1990 to 1994 and again from 2001 to 2005, she served as chair of the United States Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch. In the Fall of 2006, she became a member of the Executive Committee of the United States Judicial Conference. Judge Tacha has been a national Trustee of the American Inns of Court Foundation since 2000 and currently serves as the President of that organization.