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“It is a privilege to help foster and promote positive engagement between the alumni and members of the Central faculty, staff, and administration,” said Attorney Pagán. “Moreover, supporting Central is a business imperative for us. Central is highly-represented among our firm’s membership and we look forward to having more of their grads join us at all levels of the business.”
Established in 1939, the School of Law at NC Central University was originally intended to be a “separate-but-equal” option for aspiring Black attorneys who were not permitted to attend the School of Law at UNC. Central has since produced a substantial proportion of the leading attorneys practicing intellectual property law in North Carolina. Their evening program, for example, has been a steady conduit for engineers working in nearby Research Triangle Park to reinvent themselves as Patent Attorneys. Coats & Bennett Members Will Pagán, Ed Green and Steve Herrera are all former engineers and proud graduates of Central Law’s evening program.