Best Local Girl Made Good

Bankruptcy law specialist Nancy Rapoport graduated from Rice University and headed off to California, where she got her legal training at Stanford. Although she quickly climbed the academic ranks to the deanship of the University of Nebraska College of Law, she never lost touch with her East Texas roots. After several false starts in its national search for a new law school dean, the University of Houston finally dialed the right number. "Female law deans get telephone calls all the time from schools wanting to lure them away," Rapoport commented when she was selected by UH, "but there was literally only one school I would drop everything for." Rapoport has settled into the Montrose, enjoys spending time with her parents, and pursues activities as disparate as weight lifting and ballroom dancing. As business scandals ravaged Houston corporations shortly after her arrival, the dean has also been busy putting that bankruptcy expertise to good use as a media resource.