King & Spalding, one of Atlanta’s most prestigious and high-powered law firms, dumped a Republican-driven defense of federal marriage law Monday, yielding to protests from gay rights groups.
King and Spalding partner Paul Clement, the former U.S. solicitor under George W. Bush, immediately resigned in order to continue fighting for the federal Defense of Marriage Act, on behalf of Republicans in the U.S. House.
The 15-year-old act, known as DOMA, defines marriage – for federal tax, Social Security and other purposes – as only a union between a man and a woman. In February, the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the act.
For $520 an hour, paid with taxpayer funds appropriated from their congressional budget, House Republicans hired Clement – and King & Spalding – to continue the appeal of a decision by a federal judge in Massachusetts, who struck down the act last summer.
The reversal of Attorney General Eric Holder’s position on DOMA was considered a victory for gay rights groups. King & Spalding’s reversal is viewed the same way by gay rights groups.
The insider legal drama, seemingly built to specifications for marbled Washington corridors, is the result of a conflict between King & Spalding’s desire to hone a reputation for diversity, and its effort to expand a national appellate practice – headed up by Clement, a highly admired D.C. attorney with excellent GOP connections.
The mixture of ambitions was a blunder, the firm's top lawyer admitted.
“In reviewing this assignment further, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate,” said Robert Hays, the firm’s chairman, in a statement released Monday. “Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred and apologize for the challenges this may have created.”
King & Spalding had its origins in the Atlanta of the early 1900s, and came to much of its clout in the 1970s, when President Jimmy Carter tapped firm partner Griffin Bell, a former federal appeals court judge, as U.S. attorney general.
In his letter of resignation on Monday, Clement declared his personal views irrelevant and quoted a Mercer Law School address once delivered by Bell, who died in 2009:
“’You are not required to take every matter that is presented to you, but having assumed a representation, it becomes your duty to finish the representation. Sometimes you will make a bad bargain, but as professionals, you are still obligated to carry out the representation.’”
Clement immediately joined the Washington firm Bancroft PLLC.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, who announced Clement’s hiring only a week ago, said his move to Bancroft will "ensure the constitutionality of this law is appropriately determined by the courts, rather than by the President unilaterally." Bancroft is known for fighting for conservative causes.
The Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, last week announced a barrage of attacks targeting King & Spalding, its clients and the firm’s reputation with law school students across the country.
“King & Spalding has rightly chosen to put principle above politics in dropping its involvement in the defense of this discriminatory and patently unconstitutional law,” Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said Monday.
A protest near King & Spalding’s Atlanta headquarters, scheduled for Tuesday, has been cancelled. And a full-page ad denouncing the law firm in Tuesday's editions of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been pulled.
King & Spalding’s retreat was forced in part by its chosen emphasis on an open work force. Its own website says the firm is committed to employing the brightest and most diverse lawyers it can find, including members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
The site notes that the Human Rights Campaign – which led last week’s attack -- gave the firm a 95 out of a 100 corporate equality index rating the past four years and that domestic partner benefits are offered for same-sex couples.
Last November, Brian Basinger a King & Spalding attorney in Atlanta, was elected president of the local Stonewall Bar Association, which is dedicated to defending the rights of gays and others. The fact is still proudly noted by King & Spalding, again on its website. Efforts to reach Basinger on Monday were unsuccessful.
One factor within King & Spalding may have registered more than others.
According to a copy of the law firm’s contract with congressional Republicans, King & Spalding had agreed to bar its partners and all employees from engaging in any lobbying or advocacy for or against gay marriage that came before Congress – for as long as the DOMA case was active.
"Many of us were stunned, shocked and angered when it became known that King & Spalding had taken on this case, and we are gratefully relieved to find out they had withdrawn," said Jeff Graham, the executive director of the gay rights group Georgia Equality.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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