Lots of DOMA defense drama today.
As noted below, King and Spalding withdrew from defending DOMA on behalf of John Boehner today. Now, Paul Clement, the former Bush administration lawyer who was lead on the DOMA defense, has quit his job at King and Spalding so he can continue defending that discriminatory law.
Via Josh Gerstein:
Former Solicitor General Paul Clement resigned Monday from his law firm, King & Spalding, over the firm's abrupt and belated decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of the House of Representatives.According to Gerstein, Clement will be working at "Bancroft PLLC, a small Washington-based firm."I resign out of the firmly held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal posotion is extremely unpopular in certain quarters. Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do," Clement wrote to King & Spalding chairman Robert Hays. "I recognized from the outset that this statute implicate very sensitive issues that prompt strong views on both sides. But having undertaken the representation, I believe there is no honorable course for me but to complete it."
I guess we can agree with Clement that Boehner is an "unpopular client" and defending DOMA is "extremely unpopular."
And, it's really not honorable to defend discrimination.
