The super-Supreme Court litigator defending the law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay and lesbian marriages recently left his big law firm. Unlike so many lawyers forced out the door during the past few years, Paul Clement made the choice on his own, after the firm decided that the case was too hot a potato. That was the breaking point for Clement. As he wrote in his resignation letter, “Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do,” even — or, especially — when “the client’s position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters.”
All well and good. Whatever one thinks of the Defense of Marriage Act, surely people can agree that Clement sounds like (and arguably even looks something like) a latter-day Atticus Finch sticking up for his down-and-out client in To Kill A Mockingbird. Clement’s decision might not be good for him, or for his former law firm, King & Spalding, “but in this instance, my loyalty to the client and respect for the profession must come first.”
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