Yes, Wade "brought" him to NC:
Upon graduating, he moved to Tennessee to join former Republican Governor Lamar Alexander's law firm, which specialized in defending banks, insurance companies, and other corporations. In 1981, he returned to North Carolina, specifically to the politically well-connected Raleigh law firm of Wade Smith, a former Democratic Party state chairman, where he started a rapidly successful civil litigation division. He won his first multi-million dollar verdict in 1984, which he followed the next year with a $6.5 million verdict for a 6-year-old girl who'd suffered brain damage at Pitt Memorial Hospital---at the time, the largest verdict in state history. Edwards left in 1993 to start his own firm with Kirby.
Thanks for the background on these guys.