Robert Pitman was nominated by President Obama on June 28, 2011, confirmed by the Senate on September 26, 2011, and assumed office on October 3, 2011.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, he studied law at the University of Texas and the University of Oxford. Following law school, he clerked for U.S. District Judge David O. Belew, Jr in the Northern District of Texas. He then returned to Austin to work as an associate at the law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski. In 1990, Pitman joined the U.S Attorney's office for the western district Texas as an assistant U.S. Attorney, where he prosecuted a wide variety of federal criminal cases. Following a detail to the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys in Washington, D.C. in 1997, he returned to Austin, becoming the chief of the Austin division of the U.S. Attorney's office. In 2001, he served as the court-appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas until the confirmation of the Presidentially-appointed U.S. Attorney in November of that year. Pitman then served in the position of Deputy U.S. Attorney until he was appointed United States Magistrate Judge in October of 2003. While serving in the U.S. Attorneys office and on the bench, Pitman was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Texas, and taught courses in the law school and in the undergraduate Plan II honors program.