Earlier this week, we learned that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) put pressure on clients of the law firm King & Spalding to get it “to end its representation of the “Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives on the constitutional issues regarding Section III of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.” After the law firm caved to pressure from this left-wing outfit, it has earned the opprobrium not just of conservative pundits and jurists, but also from left-of-center commentators, even from the editorial board of the New York Times!
Calling “the pummeling” that the law firm has experienced “entirely deserved”, Ruth Marcus dubs HRC, “the bigger culprit” as it “orchestrated the ugly pressure tactics against King & Spalding“:
But strong-arming the lawyer to drop or avoid the unpopular client is not an acceptable tactic. This is not, or shouldn’t be, a left-right debate. It is true whether the lawyer is defending murderers on death row, Guantanamo detainees or a federal law — a law, it must be pointed out, that was passed by overwhelming congressional majorities and signed by a Democratic president. The Human Rights Campaign and its allies ought to remember: Not so long ago, firms were squeamish about taking on gay clients or causes.
Exactly. Read the whole thing. “King & Spalding had no ethical or moral obligation to take the case,” the editors of the New York Times write, “but in having done so, it was obliged to stay with its clients, to resist political pressure from the left that it feared would hurt its business.” (Via Jennifer Rubin.)
John Hinderaker reports that “King & Spalding is starting to experience blowback: the Attorney General of Virginia has fired the firm from work it has been doing for the state since 2009. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli sent King & Spalding a blistering letter which apparently was copied to the Washington Examiner:”
King & Spalding’s willingness to drop a client, the U.S. House of Representatives, in connection with the lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was such an obsequious act of weakness that I feel compelled to end your legal association with Virginia so that there is no chance that one of my legal clients will be put in the embarrassing and difficult situation like the client you walked away from, the House of Representatives.
It seems that HRC counted on getting favorable publicity from its successful effort to strong arm the law firm, and wasn’t prepared for the backlash. They simply ignored the larger principle at stake, a basic principle of American jurisprudence that justice, as the Times editors put it, “is best served when everyone whose case is being decided by a court is represented by able counsel.” In the wake of this reaction to King & Spalding’s pusillanimous posturing, the leaders of HRC will consider the hypothetical I offered a few days ago. They have now provided a standard for social conservatives to put pressure on law firms representing gay organizations, including their own.
SOMEWHAT RELATED: When doing a google search for HRC’s Thuggist Tactics” to track down my own post, I chanced upon this comment to Orin Kerr’s post on the King & Spalding decision:
If HRC is as right as they claim, it should not be afraid to let someone make an argument on the other side; the strength of their position will win out. Instead of quiet confidence, we see frantic boorishness. This tactic does not just potentially hurt the cause of gay marriage; it does injury to the broader political and personal intercourse and sets a dangerous precedent that will bite everyone in the ass in the long run.
Read the whole thing.
I’m not buying that HRC was all that influential in getting K&S to drop the House as their clinet in the DOMA cases. Like many others I strongly believe that HRC likes to take credit for things it has had very little or no hand in doing. HRC puts on great parties I’m sure but what exactly has it done for any of us? I’ll bet you that the reports of internal strife combined with pressure from high-profile clients like Coca-Cola is what swayed the K&S partners.
But, John, HRC acknowledges that they’re the ones who contacted King & Spalding’s clients and put pressure on them to pressure the firm.
Yes BDB, HRC is claiming credit. They are also looking for money. If HRC can don the feather of ‘the King & Spalding’ spat, that helps with the fundraising.
and then. . .Attorneys within the firm who believe in gay rights were angered by the decision to take the case, particularly when it was learned that a contract signed by Clement would bar everyone at the firm from taking a public position in support of gay marriage. Corporate clients committed to diversity — clients representing a large portion of the firm’s reported $700 million in annual revenue — may also have expressed displeasure.
Clement signed a contract that was kinda in conflict with folk within K&S
Dan,
If King & Spalding defended DOMA, all of their employees at the firm would have been prohibited from expressing support for same-sex marriage (at the very least, during the duration of the case). From a legal firm that recruits LGBT attorneys and clearly describes its defense of LGBT issues on its website, I’m sure you can see how this could get messy very quickly. HRC or no HRC, King & Spalding was in a sticky situation.
I’m not surprised about Ken Cuccinelli’s actions. He is known in Virginia for being against gay people period — regardless of their political stripe. Among other things, he has gone on record saying “homosexual ‘acts’ are detrimental to our society.”
Which doesn’t mean very much, Dan. Companies like Coca-Cola are not blind to potential PR controversies and hardly need media-whores like HRC to call them up and point out the obvious. HRC would make any claim it had to and take credit for just about anything in order to raise money. I seriously doubt that most of the CEOs of any of the companies that may have pressured K&S to drop this matter really gave a damn what Joe Solmonese had to say. I mean seriously, would you care? I sure as hell wouldn’t and frankly would tempted to do the opposite if doing so didn’t go against what I believe in.
James, if that is the case, and King & Spalding are as pro-LBGT as they claim and are so concerned about the many gay & lesbian employees they might have then they never should have signed the contract in the first place and taken the client on at all. However, they did sign it, they did take the client on and once that client had been taken on it was their duty & obligation to give that client the best defense possible. It’s one thing to decline to represent someone, but to agree to represent them and then change your mind leaving them in the lurch and having to scramble for new defense is just completely unprofessional, unethical & inexcusable.
Good Lord! King and Spalding, Coca-Cola, Eharmony, etc., all caving to pressure from gays, the mice that roared. Is there anybody with the balls to stand up to homosexual fanatics? Why are all these big corporations so damn terrified of a fringe sex group that, it was recently reported, is even tinier than was first thought? And if the answer to that question is their commitment to the religion of diversity, then please, let them bring out and fawn over the adulterers, swingers, polyamorists, pedophiles, necrophiliacs, bestiality people, and incest practitioners in their midst. I demand it in the name of DIVERSITY!!!!!!
If only lawyers were as altruistic as the Al-Qaeda Times makes them out to be. Nobody wanted to touch the Club Gitmo guests with a 10 foot dildo until libs started funneling money. Think these limousine libs are doing it out of the kindness of their hearts?
I find myself agreeing more and more with Against Equality (a far-leftwing group). The “gay marriage” issue is taking away from more important issues. Just another example.
Redefining words and opening up the door to polygamy is one issue – but using blackmail as a political tool will always backfire in the long-term. Hysterical wedding obsessives are chaotic thinkers.
However, they did sign it, they did take the client on and once that client had been taken on it was their duty & obligation to give that client the best defense possible.
However, they did sign it, they did take the client on and once that client had been taken on it was their duty & obligation to give that client the best defense possible.
BWHAAAAAAAA. . . .Clement and Boehner worked up the contract . . .not the firm
sorry for the duplication in 10. . .
King & Spalding chairman Robert Hays explained the firm’s withdrawal in a statement released to the media. “In reviewing this assignment further, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate. Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred,” he said, without indicating the nature of the mistakes or what decisions were involved in the vetting process.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Attorney quits after law firm drops its defense of DOMA – New York Sex and Relationships | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/sex-and-relationships-in-new-york/attorney-quits-after-law-firm-drops-its-defense-of-doma#ixzz1KzdFzz6J
In a sense, I don’t find K&S’s capitulation all that surprising. I’ve worked for a number of Forture 500 companies and they all have been in the forefront of implimenting politically correct policies – whether they benefit the bottom line or not. I think it’s the same fear of unending harrassment – legal or otherwise – that has pushed a large number of US companies definitely into the PC camp and made them de facto enforcers.
Legal Insurrection has more here.
Ed Whelan argues that it’s an ethics violation
HRC may be just claiming credit in a cheap way… but they still took a wrong stand here.
HRC is reaching for funding. . .as is every other non-profit. This does not excuse their behavior, particularly for their leadership. But Leaders of non-profits across the board are reaching and ending up crossing some sort of line.
I admire HRC’s past work and may yet be able to cheer them on (even with a donation) but not now.
But back to the K&S thing: Boehner and his folk got Clement to agree to defend DOMA in the courts. But the line that was crossed was that little stipulation of K&S folk being muzzled on LGBT/SSM issues during the course of contract drafted by Clement and Boehner.
Clients of K&S also might have objected to Clement’s and K&S posisiton with or without push from HRC folk pointing their fingers.
I apologize for commenting here, as my comment isn’t very relevant to the article. However, I couldn’t find a more relevant place to comment. I also apologize for my comment’s length.
I have been reading various articles and comments for a few days, but this is the first time I have been compelled to comment myself. I am a conservative, agnostic, gay male. Although I am Canadian, I believe the content of this blog to be relevant to myself, especially as a relatively small demographic who has strong beliefs. And American politics are more interesting than Canadian politics anyway. And although I am agnostic and gay, I am very conservative, even by American standards. I arrived at my political beliefs independently because they make the most sense to me.
The reason I feel compelled to comment at this point is that I have read a few comments written by gay liberals, both on this blog and elsewhere, that have drawn my ire. I do not understand why liberal gays (in general) seem to think that all gay people think exactly alike. In my opinion, sexuality is a minor thing. Why does it warrant political uniformity? That does not make sense. I owe no loyalty to other gay people. Normally, I would not be intolerant of people whose political beliefs differ from mine, but I cannot be tolerant of people who are not tolerant of me. Yes, the right does contain bigots, but so does the left. And based on what I have seen written by other gay conservatives, conservatives are generally more tolerant of gay people than gay people are of conservatives (even gay conservatives).
I abhor gay stereotypes. I resent effeminate gay men with stereotypical mannerisms for making sexuality a big deal, which it isn’t. I believe the perpetuation of the gay stereotype has alienated gay people who do not fit it from the mainstream of society. I have only recently come out to a few people. I am not at all familiar with the gay community, nor do I really want to become familiar with it if it consists of left-wing bigots who hate me for being conservative.
Naamloos, welcome to the blog. Glad you found it. Your observations parallel many of our own. Do hope we’ll see/hear more of you around here.
Good Luck on your Journey Naamloos, and it is true, you don’t need to run off to some gay provence or ghetto. Enjoy your new adventure.
Well, Rusty, if they had a problem with the clause in the contract it was up to them to decline to SIGN IT. It really doesn’t matter who drafted the contract(that is not what is at issue here) , it is the obligation of all parties who will be signing it, and therefore be legally bound by it, to understand what they are signing and what they stipulations they are agreeing to abide by. So, either they didn’t read it (which is stupid & for a law firm is bordering on totally incompetent) or they did read it, but didn’t give a crap about the fact that their employees would be muzzled until they thought it was going to cost them money. Either way, it doesn’t speak well of their ethics.
http://gay.americablog.com/2011/04/lessons-from-king-spalding.html?m=1
Here you go Kristie, another opinion.
That’s what liberals call “diversity”. You can be whatever color or sexuality as long as you think the party approved way.
“Well I’ve always said that there’s nothing an agnostic can’t do if he really doesn’t know if he beleives in anything or not.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBlRB1HH2g
To be honest I think a lot of this is just jawboning until we know what exactly was in the contract. King & Spalding obviously felt they could get out of the contract without consequences — or with fewer consequences than if they stayed in it — so for all any of us knows, there could have been a provision for one party or the other to back out of the contract without penalty under certain conditions.
If not, then King & Spalding might believe that since they had been under contract for such a short time, backing out did not create any harm to the House of Representatives that K & S could be legally liable for. And if neither of those, then King & Spalding believes they have a better chance fighting any breach of contract action than if they stayed under contract and tried to hold their firm together and keep their other clients. I don’t know which is true.
In any case, it seems to me that King & Spalding, with their very carefully built reputation for being good on LGBT issues, truly did make a mistake by entering into a contract that had no provisions protecting its LGBT people, unlike contracts with other client, and that prohibited the pro-LGBT advocacy of which the firm to that point been proud. HRC and other gay activist groups saw this inconsistency and went to work on it, while at the same time internal K & S dissatisfaction with the contract heated up and came to a boil.
You can join the New York Times and other voices in the big media in attacking gay activists or the euphemism “the left” (which in this case is a dog whistle meaning gay activists) if you want to, but this is a conflict playing itself out mostly within the lawyerly world. The internal politics of King & Spalding and its relations with its clients and the rest of the legal world were the crucial thing here. Likewise you can attack the attorneys within K & S who applied the internal pressure that had much to do with the voiding of the contract for not snapping to like good little soldiers and doing their DOMA-defending duty. However, employment, like commerce, is a marketplace, and when employees are valuable and not easily replaced, they have more say in the workplace, wishful thinking about uniformly authoritarian work environments notwithstanding.
What was achieved by those angry K & S associates and HRC and other gay activists is that a prestigious firm rejected the role of defending the Defense of Marriage Act like someone spewing out a mouthful of rotten milk. The case was then taken up by a much smaller, specialized firm with an overtly rightward orientation. King & Spalding and Bancroft PLLC will likely been seen as proxies for the legal world as a whole, and once again an anti-gay stance will have become unwelcome in much of the mainstream professional world, to find acceptance only in an ideologically welcoming corner of it. This is a public relations defeat for the defense of DOMA, well before the court action has even started. The people of the lawlerly world ultimately don’t care about the opinions of outside activists or the blogosphere, but only about those within their own realm. There, the defense of DOMA has taken quite a blow.
Meanwhile, the anti-gay movement has AGAIN screwed up legally, while succeeding beautifully at doing at it does best, stirring up rancor against LGBT people. They have played the tune that many in the media have picked up, that once again we gay people are the aggressors, and straight people are the poor little victims.
Now I can understand gay conservative alienation in regard to the gay political establishment, and that not being part of one major camp or another can leave one with ugly choices, but consider if you really want to be siding with the anti-gay movement on this one.
And Donny D comes along and makes Naamlos point for him. Way to go.
Ethics, client member relationships. None of them matter as long as they get their way.
What ever happened to the good old days when the ACLU made a stink about Nazis in Skokie (very Jewish area of Chicagoland) and their right to march there.
Now a law firm taking on a contentious case is forbidden.
The left has always been about totalitarianism (hence the support of Nazis). I’m glad this is hurting K&S, Good for Virginia for taking a stand.
Dan, I can take credit for the beautiful day that we’re having here in NJ, but saying so does not make it so. That’s the case with HRC. If somehow they really did influence King and Spalding to bow out, it says much more about the law firm than it does about HRC.
I agree that everyone is entitled to an attorney when the situation calls for it. But that does not mean that an attorney has to take a case for a client whose character and actions are so egregious and then state how they are doing such a wonderful thing for our criminal justice system by doing so (see the OJ Simpson dream team as an example). Funny how these lawyers won’t defend some poor defendant who’s trial doesn’t become a media circus.
In this case, the “client” is a group of House Republicans in their public capacity (i.e., they aren’t paying these lawyers using their own money). And since the U.S. Government is poorer than any individual in this country, they should have used a law firm who was willing to do this for free, if you ask me. In any case, K&S had no obligation to take a case that is unpopular and against their own principles. And worse yet, expect no repercussions from doing so. No, this does not excuse HRC, no matter how irrelevant their actions were. But this law firm was touted as being pro-gay, and they expected their employees to be silenced by taking this unpopular case?
It looks bad that K&G backed out after agreeing to take the case, and it looks like this whole thing is going to hurt the law firm, at least in the short term. But it doesn’t seem like they would have been able to vigorously to defend the law. So perhaps they did the House Republicans a favor by bowing out, and let them hire a law firm who does believe in their cause.
Why are all these big corporations so damn terrified of a fringe sex group that, it was recently reported, is even tinier than was first thought?
Seane-Anna, sometimes people have principles even when a group consists of a small percentage. In this case, most of those in the law firm, and the law firm itself apparently believe DOMA is a terrible law.
And if the answer to that question is their commitment to the religion of diversity, then please, let them bring out and fawn over the adulterers, swingers, polyamorists, pedophiles, necrophiliacs, bestiality people, and incest practitioners in their midst.
While a majority of people oppose DOMA, a huge majority oppose the types of sex you obsess over. You would see a different result if House Republicans sought to retain an attorney to defend any laws outlawing, say, necrophilia.
The_LiveWire wrote:
Naamlos said a number of different things. Which of them do you feel I lived up or down to?
Who is this “they” and are you saying I belong to this group? If so, I don’t like being “othered” any more than you do or anyone else here who’s been unfairly stuck with a label and assumed to have the negative characteristics that that label supposedly carries.
For the record, I do think King & Spalding screwed over its client, the pro-DOMA defense majority of the House of Representatives, when they took the contract and then backed out of it. I do think that people should follow through with the commitments that they make if that’s possible. I just don’t think it was possible in this case.
Well, I wouldn’t go that far. The more probable answer is that HRC made it known to K&S that, if they continued with this case, there would no longer be a chance of them ever being judged on their performance, the quality of their legal staff, or the opportunities they offered for lawyers and legal staff. There would simply be an automatic veto, rejection, and blacklist by any gay and lesbian lawyer, and their own associates would simply ignore instructions, protest against them, sabotage the cases on which they were working, and simply ignore legal ethics.
HRC likely put it very simply: you will no longer be judged by character and performance, but solely on how you do exactly what gay and lesbian people tell you what to do.
And in response to Pat’s last paragraph, so let’s see: courts should ignore legal precedent and automatically overturn laws such as Proposition 8, voted on and established by a majority, when they interfere with anyone’s right to marry whatever attracts them sexually. It’s a matter of principles.
Except, of course, that courts should not overturn laws that were passed by a majority when they interfere with anyone’s right to marry whatever attracts them sexually.
Equal protection means equal protection, Pat. How about reaffirming that marriage is not some sort of strangely-inalienable constitutional right, but that it’s a privilege whose conditions are established by law?
You state that DOMA is ‘anti-gay’ like it’s a forgone conclusion. You also state that ‘we gay people’ as if there is a monolithic groupthink for gays. Exactly as he complained.
if that wasn’t your intent, then I apologize for inferring it.
King & Spalding, like basically every law firm, has a process that prevents possible conflicts between cases. If a partner tries to bring on a new client or a new matter, it has to be submitted to a review committee. The committee will check to make sure there aren’t conflicts posed by the new work. If not, Thunderbirds are go.
How did the DOMA deal work? Apparently, the contract was negotiated by Clement himself, and the firm was informed after the contract was ready. Go back and read the King & Spalding statement from the firm’s chairman, on why it was dropping this case.
In reviewing this assignment further, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate. Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred and apologize for the challenges this may have created.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/04/29/the-paul-clement-pushback.aspx
The_Livewire wrote:
I used “we gay people” to help show how the anti-gay movement wants us to be seen as a monolithic, oppressive group. I know better than to believe that we aren’t incredibly varied and often internally fractious.
I didn’t explicitly state that DOMA is anti-gay, but that’s a clear inference in what I wrote and I stand behind it as my explicit belief. But that brings up a question that I hope I haven’t asked too late in the life of this blog item to have a hope it will be spotted and answer. Bear with my attempt to phrase this appropriately:
How would one make the case, from the point of view of an uncloseted and self-respecting gay person, that DOMA is not anti-gay? This is NOT a rhetorical question. I’d like to know how a gay person might see DOMA as not being anti-gay.