Raleigh partner Reed Hollander successfully represented a university in a lawsuit raising constitutional challenges to incentives given by the State of North Carolina for the University's relocation to and expansion in Charlotte.  The challenge was brought the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, headed by former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr, on behalf of two individual plaintiffs.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan ruled on February 16, 2010, that approximately $8.5 million in state incentives to Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte served the legitimate public purposes of education and economic development, and were therefore not in violation of the North Carolina Constitution. Judge Morgan also ruled that the two individual plaintiffs lacked standing to sue for alleged violations of equal protection and due process.

Judge Morgan agreed with the state's attorney and Mr. Hollander, who jointly argued that previous court precedents established that the North Carolina General Assembly has the power to appropriate money for public purposes, and that both education and economic development are valid public purposes. Morgan also agreed that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue because they had not alleged that they had sought or been denied similar incentives or that they fell within a similar class as the university. 

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