An evenly divided Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed the judgment in favor of Piper. 723 F.2d 110 (1983). The prevailing judges held that Rule 42 violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause. After finding that Art. IV, §2, protects an individual's right to "pursue a livelihood in a State other than his own,"" id., at 112, (quoting Baldwin v. Montana Fish & Game Comm'n, supra, at 386), the judges applied the two-part test set forth in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U. S. 518 (1978). They concluded that there was no "substantial reason" for the different treatment of nonresidents and that the challenged discrimination bore no "substantial relationship" to the State's objectives." See id., at 525-527.

The dissenting judges found that the New Hampshire Supreme Court's residency requirement did not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause. While recognizing that Rule 42 may "serve the less than commendable purpose of insulating New Hampshire practitioners from out-of-state competition," 723 F. 2d, at 119, they found several "substantial" reasons to justify discrimination against nonresidents. If the residency requirement were abolished, "large law firms in distant states" might exert significant influence over the state bar. Ibid. These nonresident lawyers would be unfamiliar with local customs and would be less likely to perform pro bono work within the State. The dissenting judges

upon interstate commerce, in violation of Art. I, §8, of the United States Constitution. The Court of Appeals did not address these claims, and our resolution of this case makes it unnecessary for us to reach them.

The panel, with one judge dissenting, had reversed the District Court's judgment. 723 F. 2d 98 (1983).

"The prevailing judges thought it significant that three State Supreme Courts had invalidated their own bar residency requirements. Sargus v. West Virginia Board of Law Examiners, W. Va. —, 294 S. E. 2d

440 (1982); Noll v. Alaska Bar Assn., 649 P. 2d 241 (Alaska 1982); Gordon v. Committee on Character and Fitness, 48 N. Y. 2d 266, 397 N. E. 2d 1309 (1979). Since the Court of Appeals decision in this case, another State Supreme Court has reached the same conclusion. In re Jadd, 391 Mass. 227, 461 N. E. 2d 760 (1984).

further believed the District Court's judgment was inconsistent with our decision in Leis v. Flynt, 439 U. S. 438 (1979) (per curiam).

The Supreme Court of New Hampshire filed a timely notice of appeal, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 466 U. S. 949 (1984). We now affirm the judgment of the court below.

II
A

Article IV, §2, of the Constitution provides that the "Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." This Clause was intended to "fuse into one Nation a collection of independent, sovereign States." Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 395 (1948). Recognizing this purpose, we have held that it is "[o]nly with respect to those 'privileges' and 'immunities' bearing on the vitality of the Nation as a single entity" that a State must accord residents and nonresidents equal treatment. Baldwin v. Montana Fish & Game Comm'n, supra, at 383. In Baldwin, for example, we concluded that a State may charge a nonresident more than it charges a resident for the same elk-hunting license. Because elk hunting is "recreation" rather than a "means of a livelihood," we found that the right to a hunting license was not "fundamental" to the promotion of interstate harmony. 436 U. S., at 388.

Derived, like the Commerce Clause, from the fourth of the Articles of Confederation,' the Privileges and Immunities.

6

Under this Clause, the terms "citizen" and "resident" are used interchangeably. See Austin v. New Hampshire, 420 U. S. 656, 662, n. 8 (1975). Under the Fourteenth Amendment, of course, “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States... are citizens. . . of the State wherein they reside."

7

Article IV of the Articles of Confederation provided:

"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants

Opinion of the Court

470 U. S. Clause was intended to create a national economic union. 8 It is therefore not surprising that this Court repeatedly has found that "one of the privileges which the Clause guarantees to citizens of State A is that of doing business in State B on terms of substantial equality with the citizens of that State." Toomer v. Witsell, supra, at 396. In Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418 (1871), the Court invalidated a statute under which nonresidents were required to pay $300 per year for a license to trade in goods not manufactured in Maryland, while resident traders paid a fee varying from $12 to $150. Similarly, in Toomer, supra, the Court held that nonresident fishermen could not be required to pay a license fee of $2,500 for each shrimp boat owned when residents were charged only $25 per boat. Finally, in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U. S. 518 (1978), we found violative of the Privileges and Immunities Clause a statute containing a resident hiring preference for all employment related to the development of the State's oil and gas resources."

There is nothing in Ward, Toomer, or Hicklin suggesting that the practice of law should not be viewed as a "privilege"

of each of these States. . . shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof. . . .”

Charles Pinckney, who drafted the Privileges and Immunities Clause, stated that it was "formed exactly upon the principles of the 4th article of the present Confederation." 3 M. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 112 (1911).

8

This Court has recognized the "mutually reinforcing relationship" between the Commerce Clause and the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U. S. 518, 531 (1978).

'In United Building & Construction Trades Council v. Mayor & Council of Camden, 465 U. S. 208 (1984), we stated that "the pursuit of a common calling is one of the most fundamental of those privileges protected by the Clause." Id., at 219. We noted that "[m]any, if not most, of our cases expounding the Privileges and Immunities Clause have dealt with this basic and essential activity." Ibid.

under Art. IV, §2.10 Like the occupations considered in our earlier cases, the practice of law is important to the national economy. As the Court noted in Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U. S. 773, 788 (1975), the "activities of lawyers play an important part in commercial intercourse."

The lawyer's role in the national economy is not the only reason that the opportunity to practice law should be considered a "fundamental right." We believe that the legal profession has a noncommercial role and duty that reinforce the view that the practice of law falls within the ambit of the Privileges and Immunities Clause." Out-of-state lawyers may-and often do-represent persons who raise unpopular federal claims. In some cases, representation by nonresident counsel may be the only means available for the vindication of federal rights. See Leis v. Flynt, 439 U. S., at 450 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). The lawyer who champions unpopular causes surely is as important to the "maintenance or well-being of the Union," Baldwin, 436 U. S., at 388, as was

10 In Corfield v. Coryell, 6 F. Cas. 546 (No. 3,230) (CCED Pa. 1825), Justice Bushrod Washington, sitting as Circuit Justice, stated that the "fundamental rights" protected by the Clause included:

"The right of a citizen of one state to pass through, or to reside in any other state, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the state; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal. . . ." Id., at 552. Thus in this initial interpretation of the Clause, "professional pursuits," such as the practice of law, were said to be protected.

The "natural rights" theory that underlay Corfield was discarded long ago. Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496, 511 (1939) (opinion of Roberts, J.); see Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168 (1869). Nevertheless, we have noted that those privileges on Justice Washington's list would still be protected by the Clause. Baldwin v. Montana Fish & Game Comm'n, 436 U. S. 371, 387 (1978).

"The Court has never held that the Privileges and Immunities Clause protects only economic interests. See Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973) (Georgia statute permitting only residents to secure abortions found violative of the Privileges and Immunities Clause).

the shrimp fisherman in Toomer or the pipeline worker in Hicklin.

B

12

Appellant asserts that the Privileges and Immunities Clause should be held inapplicable to the practice of law because a lawyer's activities are "bound up with the exercise of judicial power and the administration of justice." Its contention is based on the premise that the lawyer is an "officer of the court," who "exercises state power on a daily basis." Appellant concludes that if the State cannot exclude nonresidents from the bar, its ability to function as a sovereign political body will be threatened. 18

Lawyers do enjoy a "broad monopoly... to do things other citizens may not lawfully do." In re Griffiths, 413 U. S. 717, 731 (1973). We do not believe, however, that the practice of law involves an "exercise of state power" justifying New Hampshire's residency requirement. In In re Griffiths, supra, we held that the State could not exclude an alien from

12 JUSTICE REHNQUIST makes a similar argument in his dissent. He asserts that lawyers, through their adversary representation of clients' interests, "play an important role in the formulation of state policy." Post, at 293. He therefore concludes that the residency requirement is necessary to ensure that lawyers are "intimately conversant with the local concerns that should inform such policies." Ibid. We believe that this argument, like the one raised by the State, is foreclosed by our reasoning in In re Griffiths, 413 U. S. 717 (1973). There, we held that the status of being licensed to practice law does not place a person so close to the core of the political process as to make him a "formulator of government policy." Id., at 729.

13 We recognize that without certain residency requirements the State "would cease to be the separate political communit[y] that history and the constitutional text make plain w[as] contemplated." Simson, Discrimination Against Nonresidents and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, 128 U. Pa. L. Rev. 379, 387 (1979). A State may restrict to its residents, for example, both the right to vote, see Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 343, 344 (1972), and the right to hold state elective office. Baldwin v. Montana Fish & Game Comm'n, supra, at 383.