The UNC Law Alumni Association (LAA) will honor eight exceptional individuals at its annual alumni awards presentation on October 9 during Law Alumni Weekend, celebrating members of the Carolina Law community who embody the School’s mission to serve the legal profession, the people and institutions of North Carolina, the nation, and the world with ethics and dedication to the cause of justice. 

Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees 

The Lifetime Achievement Award honors a UNC School of Law graduate whose lifetime career has been highly distinguished, and whose achievements and contributions are widely recognized as significant and outstanding in their field. The recipient should be an alumnus/a who has made significant contributions to the law school, whose long-standing professional career, and whose accomplishments reflect admirably on and bring honor to the individual, the Bar and the School of Law.

Jim Delany ’73  

Jim Delany ’73 shaped the landscape of college athletics during a remarkable three-decade career leading the Big Ten Conference. As commissioner from 1989 to 2020, Delany oversaw the conference’s expansion from 10 to 14 member institutions, launched the Big Ten Network in 2007, and played a central role in the creation of the Bowl Championship Series. Sports Business Journal named him one of the 20 most influential sports executives of the past 20 years. Before his career in collegiate athletics, Delany served as counsel to the North Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee and as a staff attorney for the North Carolina Justice Department. He was a tri-captain of the UNC men’s basketball team and participated in two NCAA Final Fours as a Tar Heel. 

Wade Hargrove ’65  

Wade Hargrove ’65 graduated from Carolina Law with Honors and went on to build a nationally recognized practice in communications, corporate, and media law during his career as a partner at Brooks Pierce in Raleigh. He served as executive director and general counsel of the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters for more than 39 years, general counsel of the North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association for 30 years, and regulatory counsel for Hearst Communications for 20 years. Over the course of his career, he was named by the National Law Journal as one of the nation’s ten most effective media lawyers. 

Hargrove has testified before congressional and legislative committees on issues spanning copyright, satellite broadcasting, and cable television, and served as counsel in some of the country’s largest media transactions. He was a driving force behind the establishment of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, and UNC created the annual Wade H. Hargrove Communications Law and Policy Colloquium in his honor. 

His service to the University includes terms as President of the UNC Law Alumni Association and as Chair of the UNC Board of Trustees. In recognition of his contributions to the state, he received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine from the Governor of North Carolina. He has also been inducted into the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. 

Richard Stevens ’74  

Richard Stevens ’74 has dedicated his career to public service in North Carolina and to his alma mater. After earning his J.D. and a Master of Public Administration from Carolina, he served as Wake County Manager from 1984 to 2000 before winning election to the North Carolina State Senate, where he served five terms and was Appropriations Chair under both Democratic and Republican majorities. At UNC, Stevens served multiple terms as chairman of the Board of Trustees and chaired the General Alumni Association Board of Directors. The University presented him with a Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2017 and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2024. He currently serves as an attorney at Smith Anderson, focusing on government relations. 

Distinguished Alumni Award Honorees 

The Distinguished Alumni Award is an annual award that honors a UNC School of Law graduate whose accomplishments and contributions have enhanced the law school and the practice of law or other profession at the local, state, national or international level. The recipient should demonstrate one or more of the following:

• Excellence in the practice of law or other profession
• Noteworthy public service, including as members of the judiciary or other elected / appointed office
• Outstanding service to the School of Law
• The high ideals of the legal profession

Pat Brown ’86  

Pat Brown ’86 has spent her career at the intersection of law, technology, and business as executive vice president and chief legal officer at SAS, the data analytics and AI company headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. She joined SAS in 1988, shortly after earning her J.D. from Carolina Law, and has grown with the company into a global enterprise. Today she leads a team of more than 180 attorneys and legal professionals overseeing all legal and licensing operations worldwide. Before law school, she served five years as a paralegal in the United States Marine Corps. She serves on the advisory board for the Institute for Innovation at UNC School of Law, which provides legal counsel to early-stage businesses in North Carolina. 

Elizabeth Luck ’89  

Elizabeth Brown Luck ’89 made history in April 2023 as the first person of color appointed Chief of the Defender Services Office at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The Defender Services Office ensures that the right to counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and the Criminal Justice Act is enforced on behalf of those who cannot afford to retain counsel in federal court.  Elizabeth provides leadership, direction, administration, management, oversight, and support for the national system of federally appointed defense counsel. She is responsible for the appointment of counsel in over 150,000 cases per year, the operation of 83 federal defender organizations with over 4,200 employees, and payments to over 13,000 private panel attorneys nationwide.  Elizabeth’s commitment to fulfilling the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a meaningful right to counsel guides her careful stewardship of this nearly $2 billion a year program.  A dedicated career public defender, Elizabeth brought more than 30 years of experience to the role, including over a decade managing the operations of the Federal Public Defender Office serving the Eastern District of North Carolina. 

Wilson White ’06  

Wilson White ’06 serves as vice president of government affairs and public policy at Google, based in Singapore, where he leads global policy teams for the company’s platforms and devices business and oversees all government affairs operations across the Asia-Pacific region. With two decades of experience as both a software engineer and a technology attorney, he advises Google’s executive leadership and engages policymakers on regulatory issues in AI, cybersecurity, competition, and privacy. He earned his J.D. with honors from Carolina Law and holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, summa cum laude, from NC State University. He previously served as a federal judicial law clerk and a litigator at Kilpatrick Townsend and Stockton in Atlanta before joining Google. 

Emerging Leader Award Honoree 

The UNC Law Alumni Association created this annual award in 2002 to honor an emerging leader for achievements that have brought credit to the school, the legal profession, or society. The recipient of The Emerging Leader Award must be a graduate of UNC School of Law within the past 15 years and must demonstrate one or more of the following:

• Notable accomplishments in the practice of law or other profession
• Outstanding service to the School of Law
• High level of community involvement

Zac Long ’12  

Zac Long ’12 serves as President of Long Family Ventures and CEO and General Counsel for Well Care Health, a family-owned and operated home health and hospice care company. He earned his undergraduate degree from Davidson College and holds two advanced degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: a Juris Doctor from the UNC School of Law and a Master of Healthcare Administration from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. 

Long became CEO of Well Care Health in 2017. Since then, he has guided Well Care’s strategic growth as an integrated home-based care organization while helping build a family holding company to support long-term business growth. Under his leadership, Well Care has grown to more than 700 team members and serves a patient census that exceeds 5,000 across 40 counties in the Carolinas, while maintaining a commitment to industry-leading care quality. He is a member of the North Carolina State Bar, serves on the Board of Directors for United Way of the Greater Triangle, and is actively involved in professional organizations that include the National Alliance of Care at Home, Wake Forest Center for Private Business, Greater Raleigh Chamber, and the North Carolina Bar Association. He is a resident of Raleigh, along with his wife (Jessica, UNC MHA 2012), son (Grady, 7)), and daughter (Harper, 6). 

Professor S. Elizabeth Gibson Award for Faculty Excellence Honoree 

The Professor S. Elizabeth Gibson Award for Faculty Excellence is an award that honors a tenured faculty member of UNC School of Law who typifies the outstanding qualities of integrity, legal scholarship, exemplary teaching and commitment to service to UNC School of Law and the University. The award is named for S. Elizabeth Gibson ’76, Burton Craige Professor of Law at UNC School of Law, to honor the qualities that she exemplified in her more than thirty years as a much loved and respected educator.

Bill Marshall  

Bill Marshall has been a cornerstone of the Carolina Law faculty since joining in 2001 as the William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. His scholarship and teaching span the First Amendment, presidential power, election law, federal courts, civil procedure, and media law, and his work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review, among others. Before coming to Carolina Law, Marshall served as deputy White House counsel and deputy assistant to the president during the Clinton administration and as solicitor general for the State of Ohio. He received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. 

The LAA will recognize these award recipients at the Law Alumni Association Awards Dinner on Friday, Oct. 9, at the Carolina Club, as part of Law Alumni Weekend. All Carolina Law alumni, families, and friends are encouraged to join in celebrating this year’s distinguished honorees. Registration opens this summer. For more information, please contact Brian Stern at brian.stern@unc.edu.