PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

STEVEN C. MORRISON, Esquire, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS OF THE

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA; SUSAN

FREYA OLIVE; THOMAS W. STEED,

JR.; KARL ADKINS; EDWARD J.

HARPER, II; GAIL C. ARNEKE; ROBIN

L. TATUM; CATHERINE E. THOMPSON;

WILLIAM K. DAVIS; ROY W. DAVIS,  No. 05-1257

JR.; EMIL F. KRATT; SHIRLEY FULTON;

FRED P. PARKER, III, and their

successors, in their capacities as

director and/or members of the

Board of Law Examiners,

Defendants-Appellants.

ASSOCIATION OF CORPORATE COUNSEL,

Amicus Supporting Appellee. 
STEVEN C. MORRISON, Esquire, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS OF THE

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA; SUSAN

FREYA OLIVE; THOMAS W. STEED,

JR.; KARL ADKINS; EDWARD J.

HARPER, II; GAIL C. ARNEKE; ROBIN

L. TATUM; CATHERINE E. THOMPSON;

WILLIAM K. DAVIS; ROY W. DAVIS,  No. 05-1348

JR.; EMIL F. KRATT; SHIRLEY FULTON;

FRED P. PARKER, III, and their

successors, in their capacities as

director and/or members of the

Board of Law Examiners,

Defendants-Appellees.

ASSOCIATION OF CORPORATE COUNSEL,

Amicus Supporting Appellant. 

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh.

Terrence W. Boyle, District Judge.

(CA-04-92-5-BO)

Argued: November 29, 2005

Decided: June 15, 2006

Before WIDENER and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and

Walter D. KELLEY, Jr., United States District Judge

for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

2 MORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS
No. 05-1257 reversed; No. 05-1348 dismissed by published opinion.

Judge Widener wrote the opinion, in which Judge Shedd and Judge

Kelley concurred. 

COUNSEL

ARGUED: David J. Adinolfi, II, Assistant Attorney General,

NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North

Carolina, for Appellants/Cross-Appellees. Steven C. Morrison, Holly

Springs, North Carolina, for Appellee/Cross-Appellant. ON BRIEF:

Geri S. Krauss, Anthony E. Davis, HINSHAW & CULBERTSON,

L.L.P., New York, New York; Michael L. Shor, CHARLOTTE

CHAPTER OF ASSOCIATION OF CORPORATE COUNSEL,

Charlotte, North Carolina; Brian Klemm, RESEARCH TRIANGLE

AREA CHAPTER OF ASSOCIATION OF CORPORATE COUNSEL, Cary, North Carolina; Susan Hackett, ASSOCIATION OF

CORPORATE COUNSEL, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Supporting Appellee/Cross-Appellant. 

OPINION

WIDENER, Circuit Judge: 

In this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 case, Steven C. Morrison, an attorney,

filed suit alleging that the requirements by the Board of Bar Examiners for obtaining comity admission to practice law in North Carolina

under its Rule .0502(3) violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause

of Article IV, § 2; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth

Amendment; and the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court found that the state prior practice requirement violated

Morrison’s right to travel under those Constitutional provisions and

ordered the North Carolina Board of Law Examiners to admit him.

Morrison v. Board of Law Examiners, 360 F. Supp. 2d 751, 759

(E.D.N.C. 2005). Because we are of opinion that the district court

erroneously held that North Carolina could not constitutionally condiMORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS 3
tion its grant of comity on practicing in a State with comity for a

given number of years, we reverse.1

I.

Morrison graduated with honors from Indiana University School of

Law in 1979. He was admitted to practice law in Indiana in 1979,

Ohio in 1981, and California in 1985. Until he moved to California

in 1984, Morrison maintained law offices in both Indiana and Ohio.

He moved to North Carolina in July of 2000 and has lived there since.

Morrison submitted a comity application for admission to the North

Carolina Bar on December 13, 2003. For six years prior to filing his

application, Morrison practiced law in both California and as in-house

counsel in North Carolina. 

North Carolina Board of Law Examiners Rule .0502 lists the

requirements necessary for obtaining a comity admission. Subpart (3)

of that rule requires that the applicant, 

[p]rove to the satisfaction of the Board that the applicant is

duly licensed to practice law in a state, or territory of the

United States, or the District of Columbia having comity

with North Carolina and that in such state, or territory of the

United States, or the District of Columbia, while so licensed

therein, the applicant has been for at least four out of the last

six years, immediately preceding the filing of this application with the Secretary, actively and substantially engaged

in the full-time practice of law. 

1Plaintiff’s complaint took the position that any grant of comity by

North Carolina for one State, but not for another, for licensed attorneys

would be invalid. In its opinion, the district court dismissed this claim

because it found that plaintiff had suffered no injury from that requirement, obviously referring to Article III injury. A.115. Plaintiff takes

exception to that dismissal. Because a dismissal in his cross-appeal for

such want of injury is a Constitutional question with jurisdictional consequences, we do not decide that question on appeal but reach the merits

of the other question in the case under Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 628

(1946). Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 346, Rule 2 (Justice Brandeis

concurring) also is applicable. 

4 MORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS
N.C.B.L.E. Rule .0502(3). 

On January 20, 2004, the Board advised Morrison that his application for a comity admission was denied. The Board denied his application because for four of the six years preceding his application to

the Board, Morrison had practiced in a State which did not have comity with North Carolina, namely California. 

On February 11, 2004, Morrison filed this suit pursuant to 42

U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that both the requirement that he be admitted

to practice in a State having comity with North Carolina, and the

requirement that he have practiced for four of the past six years in that

State, violate the United States Constitution, particularly the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, § 2; the Equal Protection

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The district court granted Morrison’s motion for summary judgment challenging the Board’s requirement that he practice in a specific jurisdiction before obtaining a comity admission. (J.A. 110) The

district court also granted the Board’s motion for summary judgment

as to Morrison’s challenge to the comity requirement. Thus, the district court entered declaratory judgment that the Board’s Rule

.0502(3) is unconstitutional as applied to Morrison because it requires

comity applicants, who are admitted in a comity jurisdiction and have

practiced law for four of the immediately preceding six years, to have

practiced in a certain jurisdiction. The district court permanently

enjoined the Board from enforcing Rule .0502(3) against Morrison.

Finally, because Morrison was otherwise qualified pursuant to Rule

.0502(3), the district court ordered the Board to extend him a comity

admission. This appeal by the Board and cross appeal by Morrison

followed. 

II.

We review de novo this determination of the validity of the North

Carolina regulation involved as we would a district court’s determination of the Constitutionality of a state statute. See McLaughlin v.

North Carolina Board of Elections, 65 F.3d 1215, 1221 (4th Cir.

1995). 

MORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS 5
The Board contends that Rule .0502(3) is constitutional, arguing

that Morrison has been treated equally with all North Carolina residents. North Carolina residents do not have an advantage over any

other State’s applicants for comity admission to the bar. Instead, the

Board’s rule treats differently persons actively and substantially practicing law in a State having comity from those practicing in a State

that does not have comity, which is neither an equal protection violation nor a violation of the privileges and immunities clause, according

to the Board. We agree. 

As this court stated in Hawkins v. Moss, 

The power of the courts of each state to establish their own

rules of qualification for the practice of law within their

jurisdiction, subject only to the requirements of the due process or equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, is beyond controversy; in fact, it is a power in the

exercise of which the state has "a substantial interest." 

Hawkins, 503 F.2d 1171, 1175 (4th Cir. 1974) (citation omitted).2

Here, Rule .0502(3) requires that the applicant be licensed to practice

law in a State having comity with North Carolina and that the applicant has been actively and substantially engaged in the full-time practice of law in that State for at least four of the last six years

immediately preceding the application. 

Comity requirements have been upheld time and again. In Hawkins, a case factually very similar to the present one, a New Jersey

attorney established a residence in South Carolina and sought admission to the South Carolina Bar on motion. He challenged the constitutionality of a South Carolina Supreme Court rule which allowed a bar

exam exemption to those attorneys admitted to practice in a State

granting reciprocity to South Carolina attorneys. The district court

found that the rule did not violate the constitutional rights of individuals, such as the plaintiff, licensed by States, such as New Jersey, not

2Hawkins is a case involving the validity of the South Carolina comity

Rule 10, which was similar to, but not the same as, the North Carolina

rule involved here. For a collection of cases on the subject, we refer to

Judge Russell’s opinion in Hawkins. 

6 MORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS
granting reciprocity and this court affirmed. See also Brown v.

Supreme Court of Virginia, 359 F. Supp. 549 (1973) (a three-judge

district court case). 

We observed in Hawkins, 

It is a familiar rule of constitutional law that a statute or rule

promulgated under state authority will be found to violate

equal protection only when it results in discrimination

against a certain class and the classification is not rationally

related to any legitimate state policy or interest.

Hawkins, 503 F.2d at 1177 (citations omitted). "Reciprocal statutes or

regulations, it has been uniformly upheld, are designed to meet a

legitimate state goal and are related to a legitimate state interest. For

this reason, they have been found invulnerable to constitutional attack

on equal protection grounds." Hawkins, 503 F.2d at 1178. Moreover,

the "mere fact that they ‘affect some groups of citizens differently

than others’ or that they ‘result in "incidental individual inequality"’

will not render such statutes or rules invalid." Hawkins, 503 F.2d at

1177 (quoting Martin v. Walton, 368 U.S. 25, 26 (1961)). 

Here, Rule .0502(3) requires that applicants be licensed in a State

having comity with North Carolina and have practiced for at least

four out of the last six years in such a reciprocal State. This requirement affects Morrison because he most recently practiced in California, a non-comity state with North Carolina. However, the negative

impact on Morrison does not render the rule invalid. North Carolina

is not discriminating against citizens of other States in favor of her

own. The rule simply represents North Carolina’s "undertaking to

secure for its citizens an advantage by offering that advantage to citizens of any other state on condition that the other state make a similar

grant." Hawkins, 503 F.2d at 1176-77. 

Morrison and the district court insist that Rule .0502(3) includes a

residency requirement, which "implicates the Fourteenth

Amendment-protected third component of the right to travel" under

the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV and the Fourteenth

Amendment. First, Rule .0502(3) contains no residency requirement.

Just as importantly, Hawkins decided the "privileges and immunities"

MORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS 7
provision of the Fourteenth Amendment provides no Constitutional

base for an attack on the Rule." Hawkins, 503 F.2d at 1178. Moreover, 

the right of federal citizenship as reflected in the "right to

travel" and as protected by this provision is not to be construed to mean that a citizen carries with him from state to

state an absolute right of comity to practice, not a "common

occupation", but a profession, which is properly subject to

state regulation, in any state to which he travels . . . 

Hawkins, 503 F.2d at 1178-79. Also of importance is that, Rule

.0502(3) treats Morrison no differently than it treats North Carolina

citizens and residents. Rule .0502(3) requires all applicants seeking

comity admission to have practiced in the comity state for four of the

prior six years. "Thus, whether he be a life-long citizen of [North]

Carolina or an individual who, like the plaintiff, has just moved to

[North] Carolina, his rights under Rule [.0502] are identical." Hawkins, 503 F.2d at 1180. "So long, then, as the State does not subject

the migrant attorney, seeking the right to practice in the State, to no

more onerous requirements than those imposed on its own citizens

seeking such right, it cannot be said that the State has violated" Article IV, § 2. Hawkins, 503 F.2d at 1179-80. 

Morrison has been held to no more onerous requirements for

admission to the North Carolina bar than any citizen of North Carolina. Simply because he practiced in California, a state not having reciprocity with North Carolina, for four of the last six years, does not

mean that his constitutional rights have been violated. He does not

meet the requirements of the North Carolina Board of Bar Examiners

Rule .0502(3), a valid rule. Thus, he must seek an alternative method

of gaining admission, such as taking the bar exam, as do all the other

North Carolina lawyers similarly situated. We are of opinion and hold

that Rule .0502(3) is valid. 

Accordingly, the judgment of the district court in case No. 05-1257

is

REVERSED.

8 MORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS
The appeal in case No. 05-1348 is 

DISMISSED.

MORRISON v. BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS 9