January 25, 2007

Chief Justice Roberts will speak to law school community

Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr., will visit the School of Law as the Howard J. Trienens Visiting Judicial Scholar and deliver a lecture to the Northwestern law community. (The lecture is not open to the public, and no more tickets are available.)

Roberts, who will teach and spend time with law faculty and students during his visit, will deliver the lecture at 4 p.m. Feb. 1, at Thorne Auditorium.

“We are thrilled that Chief Justice Roberts will give a lecture to the Northwestern law community during his visit,” said Dean David Van Zandt. “Some have suggested that he was born to be chief justice, and we are sure that he will leave his mark as the latest of the leading jurists who have spent considerable time at the law school through the Howard J. Trienens Visiting Scholar Program.”

The visiting Trienens scholar, who spends a few days at the law school, provides students and faculty with perspectives on the judicial process and contemporary legal issues.

Nominated by President George W. Bush, Roberts became chief justice of the United States in September 2005. Before that, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

He practiced law in Washington, D.C. He served as principal deputy solicitor general at the U.S. Depart-ment of Justice, as associate counsel to President Ronald Reagan and as a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States.

The Howard J. Trienens Visiting Scholar Program was established at the School of Law in 1989 by partners of Sidley Austin to honor Howard Trienens’ service to the firm and Northwestern.

Trienens, a partner at Sidley Austin since 1956, has been a member of the Northwestern board of trustees since 1967 and chairman of the board from 1986 to 1995. He received two degrees from Northwestern, a bachelor’s degree in 1945 and a J.D. in 1949, and was editor in chief of the Illinois Law Review.