Former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker and his team of government relations lawyers and consultants are moving to a new law firm today.

The Wicker crew is slated to set up shop with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, where Wicker will join as a partner. Wicker is leaving Columbus, Ohio-based Schottenstein Zox & Dunn, for which he had opened a Raleigh office in early 2008.

The four other members of his government relations team will be joining him, including Peter Hans, a former uberstrategist for Republicans and current vice chairman of the UNC Board of Governors.

Wicker, a Democrat, served as lieutenant governor from 1993 to 2001. Nelson Mullins is home to two of the capital’s best known lobbyists, Zeb Alley and George Teague.

UNC board leaders originally agreed to a lucrative exit package for departing N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger.

Then, they flip-flopped.

During the weekend that he accepted Oblinger's resignation, UNC system President Erskine Bowles cut a deal that would have allowed the former chancellor to keep his $420,000 salary for six months before he settled back into a faculty salary and teaching position.

But last month, the UNC Board of Governors rewrote the terms, cutting Oblinger to a $173,000 salary immediately. Bowles said that the board chairwoman, Hannah Gage, and vice-chairman, Peter Hans, were consulted on the original deal, reports Steve Riley.

"Peter and Hannah did change their minds," Bowles said. "They had their own rationale for doing that. They did what they thought was right. I gave my word, and that's it for me. I did what I felt was right."

At the board's meeting last month, Gage said that the board "acknowledged [Oblinger's] enormous contributions but felt there needed to be consequences for some things that went terribly wrong."