I stand by my previous defense of the right of lawyers to represent clients without being targeted or pressured because of those clients. Without that, how would any mass murderer get a fair trial? But it behooves me to add that the conditions place by the House of Representatives on the law firm of King and Spalding were onerous and illegal in many states. Maybe that also contributed to the law firm's dropping the case. A reader adds:
King & Spalding should have never taken the case in the first place. The firm is an 800+ lawyer international behemoth that touts its diversity credentials, including LGBT lawyers and issues, on its website and in its recruiting. I doubt any pressure from gay rights groups had any effect at all; rather the firm probably realized that the $500,000 in fees would pale in comparison to the business lost by clients leaving the firm and the talent lost by LGBT and LGBT-friendly lawyers leaving the firm for other top firms. There are thousands of small law firms with top flight talent around the nation that could take on this representation without alienating hundreds of employees. In fact, since Paul Clement resigned from King & Spalding, it looks like he’ll take this representation to one of those firms (or start up one of his own).
Another:
My guess, for what it's worth, is that the King & Spalding statement on what happened is exactly right – Clement said he'd take the case without consulting with his colleagues, and once they were consulted they told him that it wasn't the kind of case they wanted associated with their names, thank you. Mr. Clement now has discovered something he may not have realized before, which is that he's not important enough to the firm that he will always get what he wants. This may have come as a rude surprise.
But I agree with you that the defenders of DOMA ought to be represented by good lawyers, if for no other reason than that it's better if you beat the other side's well-presented best arguments. That said, there are plenty of good lawyers at places like the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Landmark Legal Foundation, who won't be constrained by having to worry about whether their other clients will be mad at them.
Another:
I agree that there is nothing inherently wrong with an attorney defending DOMA and that hounding law firms to drop unpopular clients is a sad tactic. But to defend DOMA is not exactly on the same level as defending Guantanamo detainees or indigent citizens accused of committing crimes. The federal government is the "client" in the DOMA litigation, so quite unlike indigent defendants or detainees, it has an army of lawyers at its disposal in the Justice Department. The fact that the government is not using its own lawyers to defend DOMA, for its own internal reasons, does not place the act on the same footing as those we typically think of when we say that "everyone deserves a lawyer."
The Dish 