Firm King & Spaulding reverse on deal with House GOP to defend DOMA
Under pressure from gay rights groups, Atlanta-based international law firm King & Spaulding announced it was pulling out of a deal struck with Republican leaders to defend the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of the House of Representatives.
“In reviewing this assignment…, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate,” said King & Spaulding chairman Robert Hays in a statement. “Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred and apologize for the challenges this may have created.”
GOP House Speaker John Boehner announced in February that Congress would defend DOMA after the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the law in court. In a letter to congressional leaders explaining the move, Attorney General Eric Holder said he thought DOMA unconstitutionally discriminated against gay people.
As Amanda Terkel at the Hufffington Post reports, pro-gay law groups were especially concerned with a clause in the contract King & Spaulding signed with the House that barred any of the firm’s attorneys from working to “alter or amend” DOMA, even on a pro-bono basis.
Read more on the story at the Huffington Post, which has also posted Clement’s resignation letter.
“I resign out of the firmly-held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client’s legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters,” he wrote.
Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general and acting U.S. attorney general, attended Georgetown, Cambridge and Harvard universities. He was a law clerk for conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.