Brooks Pierce partner Wade H. Hargrove was elected chairman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees on July 27, 2011.
Hargrove was appointed in 2009 to the Board of Trustees, a 13-member board responsible for governing the University.
“Serving the Board of Trustees as chair is an important responsibility and a great honor,” Hargrove said. “I look forward to working with the trustees, the administration, faculty, students and alumni to do all we can to assure that the University fulfills its mission of teaching, research and public service even as we – as do other public and private institutions – face significant economic challenges.”
Hargrove is the senior partner in Brooks Pierce’s Raleigh office, and he runs a nationally-recognized corporate, communications and media law practice. He has been asked to testify before numerous Congressional and legislative committees on issues involving corporate law, copyright law, the Internet, satellite broadcasting, open government, libel and slander, political broadcasting, broadcast license renewal, cable television, and public utility law. He regularly advises clients in mergers and acquisitions and has served as counsel in some of the nation's largest media transactions.
Hargrove is listed in Who's Who in America, The Best Lawyers in America, and Super Lawyers. He has been named by The National Law Journal as one of the nation's leading media / telecommunications lawyers. He has been honored by induction in the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, by the Distinguished Service Award given by the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters, and by the President's Cup given by the North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association.
As a student at UNC, Hargrove was a Jefferson Standard Foundation and Alumni Scholar. He was active in student government and was initiated into the Order of the Golden Fleece. He earned his bachelor’s degree with honors in 1962 and a UNC law degree three years later. A former member of the University’s Board of Visitors and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications Board of Visitors, Hargrove served on the advisory committee of the Center for Media Law and Policy and the General Alumni Association Board of Directors. For the School of Law, he served as alumni association president.
Hargrove was the driving force behind the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, a national forum for the media industry, legal scholars and practitioners to discuss emerging issues at the intersection of media and law. The center is a collaboration of the UNC journalism and law schools. In 2009, he was honored with the establishment of an annual media law colloquium at Carolina that was named for him.