This article at TalkingPointsMemo is pretty confusing but as I read it

1) The law firm of King and Spaulding which had contracted with GOP leadership in the House to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (so called) has withdrawn from said contract;

2) Their lead lawyer for the Defense of the Defense of Marriage (so called), former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who headed up the appellate practice for the firm, resigned – in protest, it would seem. But, apparently

3) Clement will continue to represent the House — in all matters, or just in DoDOMA is not clear.

At any rate, it’s good to see, as the support rises for recognizing that citizens are citizens regardless of particular features of their skin, limbs, mental make up, feelings of tenderness or passion, the edifices built on the old landscape are beginning to crack and crumble, law-firms included.

Update:  Oh, this is good!  King and Spaulding only signed on to do the DOMA (so called) defense a week ago, and has already withdrawn!

As public relations debacles go, this was a doozy. But the firm must have calculated that the alternative would have been worse. In the intervening week, a series of public and behind-the-scenes developments made it clear that the firm would suffer recriminations for defending what many of its top clients and future recruits — not to mention gay rights advocates — consider to be an anti-gay law.

Sources with knowledge of the backlash confirm that one of King & Spalding’s top clients, Coca Cola, also based in Atlanta, directly intervened to press the firm to extricate itself from the case.

Other King & Spalding clients likewise conveyed to the firm that its decision to take the DOMA case could cause them problems, both internally and with customers, according to sources who spoke with TPM. It also faced its own internal backlash.

But it wasn’t just private pressure. King & Spalding also faced escalating protests from gay rights groups. The LGBT community in Atlanta has significant political influence, and the firm quickly became a target for major gay rights organizations including the Human Rights Campaign and the group Georgia Equality — the largest gay rights advocate in the state. The groups planned an aggressive ad campaign, direct communication with the firm’s clients, and a diminution of its Corporate Equality Index ranking — the metric HRC uses to track corporate support for gay rights.

They had also scheduled a large public event for Tuesday, April 26, but quickly canceled it after King & Spalding announced Monday that it had withdrawn from the case, sparking Clement’s resignation from the firm. Clement, a leading light among top conservative lawyers in DC who served as solicitor general under George W. Bush, quickly landed at a boutique DC firm populated by other conservative lawyers, where he announced he would continue to handle the DOMA case for the House of Representatives.

TPM

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