Welcome! Thank you for taking the time to visit the North Carolina Central University School of Law’s website. On our website, you’ll learn about joining the Nest and becoming a Legal Eagle. I hope that the information contained here will assist you in making one of the most important career decisions of your life. Selecting a law school is not just about choosing an institution to obtain your legal education: you are choosing the place where you will engage in a journey to grow personally and professionally as you study and train to become a licensed attorney.

NCCU Law is a law school with an illustrious history and a bright future. For more than eighty years, NCCU Law has been fulfilling its mission “to foster in each student a deep sense of professional responsibility, personal responsibility, and personal integrity so as to produce competent and socially responsible members of the legal profession.” Our dedication to that mission is coupled with our commitment to prepare students to thrive in a legal profession that is continuously evolving.

NCCU Law has been and continues to be a school that gives its students the opportunity to achieve their goals of becoming lawyers. We provide students the tools they need to be successful at every stage of their journeys from law students to licensed attorneys. After students matriculate, our Academic Success Department provides them with the academic support they need to be successful in law school and to pass the bar examination. We know that becoming a lawyer involves more than just learning the black letter law. Therefore, we offer our students the chance to engage in the actual practice of law by participating in the law school’s externship program or enrolling in one of the law clinics that serves the community and provides experiential learning. In addition to providing academic support, we have a full-time licensed counselor in the Office of Wellness to assist as our Legal Eagles as they navigate the stresses and pressures of law studies.

The faculty is developing new and innovative centers to prepare our students to participate in diverse and emerging practice areas. The Social Justice and Racial Equity Institute (SJREI) is a collaboration between experts in a variety of disciplines to develop a comprehensive analysis of social problems and systems rooted in the history of racism. SJREI will advance policy proposals, solutions, and legal strategies driven by data and contextualized by that history in order to repair and reverse the harm of racial injustice.

The Tech Law and Policy Center (TLPC) seeks to infuse technology throughout the curriculum to prepare students for the practice of law in the 21^st century. The TLPC offers a Law & Technology Certificate that recognizes a student’s successful completion of a focused course of technology and law study. Students who earn this Certificate will have completed classes and assignments that will ensure that the student has (1) studied a broad range of subjects related to technology law, (2) engaged in an in-depth study in one or more technology law subjects, and (3) developed competence in the area of law practice related to technology. Students are also provided instruction and support to facilitate them earning industry certifications such as the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) and Security+ certifications.

Our location in Durham, North Carolina, a city in the heart of the Research Triangle Park (RTP), provides our students with a wealth of unique opportunities to interact with technology. This is critically important because the legal profession is being significantly impacted by technology and allows NCCU Law to be at the forefront of technological innovations in the law.

NCCU Law’s motto—Truth and Service—mandates that we encourage our students to pursue justice. We continue to find new ways to live our mission, educate our students, serve the community, and advance our work by making strategic investments in the preparation of practice-ready attorneys.

It is my hope that you will consider becoming a Legal Eagle! I encourage you to apply to NCCU Law as you plan and prepare for your journey to obtain a legal education.

Malik C. Edwards
Interim Dean and John D. Fassett Professor of Law