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NuMat Technologies pitches its business plan to a panel of energy sector experts in Washington, DC. (Department of Energyphoto by Ken Shipp)investors from around the country served assays Ebrahim. “Chris and Omar had alreadyjudges.produced breakthrough MOF research. The keyEbrahim says he doesn’t know “if there isinventors of Northwestern’s MOF patents areone answer” to why NuMat has won so manyProfessors Snurr and Hupp, Omar, and Chris—competitions. “I like to think that it is simplyall world-renowned researchers in their fields.”With Hernandez and Ebrahim’s business and preparation plus passion meets timing plus fate.We all have worked really hard, and there islegal skills added to the mix, NuMat was born.some internal drive well beyond just the lure ofIn June the team took first place in the firstmoney pushing us; that combined with marketever DOE National Clean Energy Business Planinterest and some element of lightning strikingCompetition in Washington DC. US energyhas made NuMat what it is today.”secretary Steven Chu complimented the win(Or maybe it’s the ties. Team members wearners: “The winning team from Northwesternneckties depicting MOFs designed in their labsUniversity worked to build a promising newto every competition. Ever thematerials technology, developentrepreneurs, the team sellsan effective business plan, and “We are excited to wina selection of ties and coffeesell the idea to potential inves- these competitions,mugs on Zazzle, a merchantors, laying the groundworkthrilled to representdising website.)for future economic opportuNorthwestern University,“We are excited to winnities that will ensure Americaand motivated to continue these competitions, thrilledremains competitive in theto represent Northwesternglobal clean energy race.” At an to build our business.”University, and motivated toawards ceremony at the White —Tabrez Ebrahimcontinue to build our busiHouse, NuMat was awardednessaroundbreakthroughresearch done bya 100,000 cash prize and 80,000 worth of inProfessors Snurr and Hupp, Omar, and Chris,”kind services, including technical, design, andsays Ebrahim.legal assistance.NuMat has attracted national media attenThe team’s biggest win so far—nearlytion from Fortune, Nature Chemistry, Crain’s 875,000 in prizes—came at the Rice BusinessChicago Business, Chemistry World, andPlan Competition in April. Billed as the world’sBusinessWeek and rang the closing bell of therichest and largest graduate-level business planNASDAQ twice this summer—in July for wincompetition and organized by the Rice Alliancening the University of Texas’s Global Venturefor Technology and Entrepreneurship and theLabs Investment Competition and in AugustJesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business,for winning the Rice Business Plan Competition.the contest allowed collegiate entrepreneursGoing forward, NuMat will be recruitingto compete for more than 1.5 million in cashadditional talent to round out its team. “It isand prizes. Since its inception in 2000, 128 pastcompetitors have gone on to successfully launch hard to predict the future. But we are hopefulthat we will grow as a startup,” says Ebrahim.their businesses and are still in business today,Despite already achieving success, bothraising in excess of 450 million in capital fundHernandezand Ebrahim feel that completinging. More than 250 venture capitalists and otherthe JD-MBA program will help them in theircareers.“I worked with several companies in a strategy consulting and private equity capacity andsaw firsthand how the law permeated boardlevel decisions,” Hernandez says, “so I soughtan education that integrated this perspective.Choosing Northwestern—the largest and bestintegrated JD-MBA program—was easy.”For Ebrahim, “the most attractive aspect wasthe ability to get two degrees, each from a topschool, in three years. I also felt that my careerhad involved both legal and business issues.I wanted to get an in-depth understanding ofboth sides—both in the classroom andby osmosis through interacting with alumniand classmates at both Kellogg and the LawSchool.” n —LWSNuMat Lands DOEFundingIn July the Gas Technology Institute wasawarded 1.5 million in Department ofEnergy funding to develop new adsorbentsfor low-pressure natural gas vehicles aspart of a project team that includes NuMatTechnologies, a research team fromNorthwestern University, and WestportInnovations. The undertaking is one of13 new research projects that shared 30million in DOE funding nationwide tosupport researchers who are developing cutting-edge methods for harnessingnatural gas supplies for cars and trucksand expanding the use of natural gas as avehicle fuel.FALL 2012 5

NOTEWORTHYLeft: Chief Judge Kozinski (right) with Dean Rodriguez.Below left: Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan with Peter C. John andMichael A. Pope (JD ’69).Below right: Princeton University scholar Kim Lane Scheppele.School Hosts Three Public Lecture SeriesThree distinguished guest speakers—the Honorable Alex Kozinski of the US Court of Appealsfor the Ninth Circuit, Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan, and Princeton University scholarKim Lane Scheppele—presented public lectures at the Law School the past year.Howard J. Trienens Visiting Scholar ProgramPope & John Lecture on ProfessionalismJulius Rosenthal Foundation Lecture SeriesThis year’s Howard J. Trienens Visiting JudicialScholar was Alex Kozinski, chief judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the NinthCircuit. Kozinski addressed contemporary andhistorical legal issues in a discussion moderated by Dean Rodriguez, who clerked for himfollowing law school. Kozinski was appointedto the Ninth Circuit in 1985 and became chiefjudge in 2007. He had earlier been chief judgeof the US Claims Court.The Howard J. Trienens Visiting ScholarProgram was established in 1989 by partners ofSidley Austin LLP to honor Trienens (JD ’49),a partner at the firm since 1956. A member ofthe Northwestern University Board of Trusteessince 1967, Trienens chaired the board from1986 to 1995.Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan deliveredthe Pope & John Lecture on Professionalism,discussing the mortgage and foreclosure crisisin her talk “Legal Issues Facing State AttorneysGeneral.” In 2002 Madigan became the firstwoman elected to serve as the Illinois attorneygeneral. She had earlier been an Illinois statesenator and a litigator.Established by the firm of Pope & John in1991, the lecture series focuses on the manydimensions of a lawyer’s professional responsibility, including legal ethics, public service,professional civility, pro bono representation,and standards of conduct.Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S.Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and PublicAffairs and director of the Program of Lawand Public Affairs at Princeton University, wasthe featured speaker at the Julius RosenthalFoundation Lecture Series. Her “InternationalState of Emergency: Legacies of the Global Waron Terror” lectures explored the effects of post9/11 antiterrorism activities on constitutionalism and democracy.The Julius Rosenthal Foundation was established in 1919 in memory of an eminent andbeloved Chicago attorney who died in 1905.Publication of the lectures has made a notablecontribution to legal literature and scholarshipfor decades. n6 NORTHWESTERN LAW REPORTER

New Global League Includes Northwestern LawNorthwestern Law joined 16 law schools from around the world in launching the Law SchoolsGlobal League at Tilburg University Law School in the Netherlands in June. Northwestern thus faris the only United States law school in the league, which promotes close cooperation in teachingand research.The establishment of the league—which includes top law schools in Europe, Australia, Brazil,China, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa—represents “a historic occasion,” says Dean Rodriguez. It comes at a time when degree programs that traditionally were aimedat national law are increasingly concerned with cross-border issues. The league is the first formalnetwork of university law schools that aims to address these issues.“What this league promises is a constructive medium for exploring projects that are of significant value to our law students practicing in an increasingly global legal environment,” Rodriguez says.James B. Speta, associate dean of international initiatives at Northwestern Law, was also presentat the creation of the league. “From foreign students who come to Chicago for our leading programsto innovative overseas education, service, and outreach programs and partnerships, Northwesternhas long been a globally engaged law school,” he says. “Membership in the league is both confirmation of that engagement and an additional platform to extend our reach.”Also while at Tilburg University, Rodriguez, Speta, and other Northwestern Law School representatives attended a one-day symposium on the globalization of law.“Vigorous discussion at the meeting was focused on myriad forms of information delivery, comparative emphases on teaching and scholarship, different economic models of legal education, andcompeting frameworks of bench-bar relations,” Rodriguez said. “In short, we saw in action the pluralism of legal education.” nRetired justice John PaulStevens (JD ’47) donatedthe chair he used during histenure on the Supreme Courtof the United States to theLaw School. Nominated to theSupreme Court by PresidentGerald Ford in 1975, JusticeStevens served as an associatejustice for more than 34 yearsuntil his retirement in June2010. The chair is on display onthe Tiegler Bridge in the ArthurRubloff Building.AJD Program RatifiedNorthwestern Law School faculty in Februaryvoted unanimously to approve the AcceleratedJD (AJD) program—which began on an experimental basis three years ago—as an enduringprogram.Students in the AJD program complete thesame number of credit hours as three-year JDstudents but do so in five semesters over twocalendar years. AJD students benefit financiallyfrom being able to enter the workforce a yearsooner and forego one semester of educationrelated living expenses.The AJD is a core initiative of the LawSchool’s most recent strategic planning process.As the only program of its kind among top-tierlaw schools, it continues to mark NorthwesternUniversity Law School as an innovative leader.The program attracts excellent students whosebackgrounds and experiences greatly enrichthe overall learning environment and the LawSchool community. nSmallest Tuition Increasein 40 YearsNorthwestern Law School’s 2012–13 tuitionincrease of 3 percent is its smallest percentageincrease in 40 years.“During these challenging economic times,the Law School is committed to addressing therising cost of legal education and correspondingburdens of student indebtedness,” says DeanRodriguez. “Northwestern Law intends to be aleader in addressing the challenges of the newlegal economy.” nFALL 2012 7

Witness to a RevolutionRachel Lindner (JD ’12) arrived in Damascusin August 2010 on a Fulbright scholarship afew months before a series of antigovernmentuprisings that swept across North Africa andthe Middle East.“I can remember when the protests beganin Egypt and we would watch them on TV, thepeople I knew said it was an incredible historical event but never believed it would happen inSyria,” she recalls. “But as the protests spread toother countries, things got increasingly tensein Syria.”The first public demonstrations began inSyria in January 2011 but were small andsporadic. By March tensions heightened asprotests against the Bashar Al-Assad regimebegan in Dara’a. The challenges for Lindner,who was researching the disparity betweenflourishing and floundering nongovernmentalorganizations in the country, were increasedby the government’s sensitivity about outsidersresearching Syrian culture and laws. “Syrian lawregulates how much contact organizations areallowed to have with foreigners, so it becamecomplicated to establish contact and meetwith directors of organizations,” Lindner says.“Many organizations and charities in Syria arejust developing and do not want that kind ofattention.” Information was limited by statecontrolled media outlets. Lindner says SyriansThis page: View from the Citadel in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city,before the uprising.Top: Rachel Lindner (JD ’12).8 NORTHWESTERN LAW REPORTER

Recent Grad AwardedFulbright in IndiaAn Islamic Law class with Professor KristinStilt revived her interest in the Middle East.Stilt, who was once a Fulbright scholar in Egypt,encouraged and helped Lindner to apply forthe Fulbright fellowship in Syria. “ProfessorStilt helped me talk through my interests anddesign a project that would be acceptable toboth the American and Syrian governments,”says Lindner. The Fulbright program offersopportunities for students, scholars, and profesthemselves were wary of speaking out againstsionals to undertake international graduatethe government, even among friends, becausestudy, advanced research, and teaching init was known that secret police would reportelementary and secondary schools and universiperceived indiscretions. As security and milities worldwide.tary checkpoints became more common, it was,To prepare for the fellowship, LindnerLindner says, a “very tense time.”returned to Syria in early 2009 to conductWith a month left in her fellowship, theresearch, study Arabic, establish NGO andUS State Department gave Lindner and otherUN contacts, and secure a host organization.Fulbright fellows two days’ notice to leave Syria.Lindner said the respect she gained for the“It was heartbreaking to have to leave after I’dSyrian people during herbuilt networks and friendFulbright stay has becomeships,” says Lindner. “I felt as “To be a witness to such anmore important to her thanthough part of our job wasincredible social movementher research about NGOs.to be witnesses to what wasmade me think hard about“Even in situations wheregoing on, especially becausewhat I have to offer and wantpeople are being murderedthere weren’t very manyto offer in the future, bothby the thousands, it seemsforeigners in the countrypersonallyandprofessionally.”like there is still a senseto observe what happened.of hope among the SyrianWhile it was a painful expe—Rachel Lindner (JD ’12)people,” she says. “Peoplerience to watch the situationare talking about politics and taking mattersin Syria dissolve into what it is now and not beable to do anything about it, my experience gave into their own hands.”Since the uprising in March 2011, thousandsme focus. To be a witness to such an incredibleof Syrians have fled across the border to escapesocial movement made me think hard aboutthe violence. The UN estimates that more thanwhat I have to offer and want to offer in the20,000 people have been killed by securityfuture, both personally and professionally.”forces and thousands more detained. GivenLindner first visited Syria in 2008, a fewthe ongoing violence and deteriorating secumonths before entering Northwestern Law.rity situation, in February of this year the USShe had acquired an interest in Arabic andEmbassy in Damascus suspended operations.Middle Eastern culture after graduatingIn June a UN peacekeeping chief declared thatfrom college. “I was especially enamored ofSyria was in the midst of a civil war.Damascus,” she remembers. “Everyone wasLindner graduated from Northwestern Lawwarm and loving and showed great hospitality.inMayand is now working on capital defenseIt’s culturally and politically interesting andin Louisiana. n —Jennifer Westhistorically fascinating.”Adam Israelov (JD ’12) has been awardedthe Fulbright-Nehru Award, a ninemonth fellowship that began in August.He is conducting research on the role oflaw in the development of corporate socialresponsibility in India.“Because India has a rich history ofsocial responsibility, it serves as an excellent case study on demonstrating how thecapitalist desire for profit can be reconciled with corporate social responsibility,”says Israelov. “My research is intended toascertain whether India’s various legal andbusiness communities perceive a tensionbetween the law and corporate socialresponsibility practices. This programprovides me the opportunity to gain astronger grasp of India’s corporate lawsand a greater understanding of its diverseculture.”To prepare for the fellowship, Israelovcorresponded with a faculty adviser atJindal Global Law School in the NationalCapital Region of Delhi.FALL 2012 9

NOTEWORTHYSenior Research Program Produces Student ScholarsMore than 75 third-year students worked oneon-one with faculty members the past year toproduce publishable-quality research papers aspart of the Owen L. Coon/James A. Rahl SeniorResearch Program.“The senior research program is our hiddentreasure. It is the biggest distinction betweenNorthwestern and all other law schools,” saysProfessor Martin Redish, who collaboratedon two projects in 2011–12, “DisgustingSpeech and the First Amendment” withJamie Gliksberg (JD ’12) and “Constitution,Inc.: Constitutional Theory and the ModernCorporation” with Peter Siegal (JD ’12).Redish believes the program is an assetfor both student and faculty: “In my 40 yearsat Northwestern, there is nothing that I haveloved more. It is an enclave of graduate schoolcollaboration in a law school setting, whereintensive one-on-one educational experiencesare rare. It is an amazing synthesis of pedagogical and intellectual experience for both studentand professor.”John Meixner (JD-PhD ’13) worked withProfessor Shari Diamond to produce “Do10 NORTHWESTERN LAW REPORTERothers entangled in insider trading scandals,Criminal Trial Rates Affect the Vanishing Civilincluding business magnate and owner of theTrial?” and presented it at the annual CliffordDallas Mavericks Mark Cuban, stock traderSymposium on Tort Law and Social Policy atDePaul University this past spring. Meixner, the Ivan Boesky, and founder and former CEOof the biopharmaceutical company ImCloneonly student to participate in a panel discussionSystems Samuel Waksal.at the symposium, says, “It“The senior research“Senior research offerswas a fantastic opportunitystudents a chance not onlyto be a part of an importantprogram offers a chance forto explore legal doctrines,project that we could showour students to work oneas they do in their exams,case to well-respected scholon-one with profe

Hernandez and Tabrez Ebrahim, are JD-MBA students at the Law School and the Kellogg School of Management. Hernandez has a BS in industrial engineering and management sci-ences and worked at Arcapita, a global private equity rm. Ebrahim, the chief operating o cer, Breakthrough Discovery Propels Northwestern Team