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NRA, Virginia Attorney General drop King & Spalding after firm’s decision to not defend DOMA

Backlash from some of Atlanta-based King & Spalding’s clients upset with the firm’s decision to drop its defense of DOMA for U.S. House Republican is beginning to pile up.

On Monday, the National Rifle Association sent a letter to King & Spalding chair Robert Hays to tell him the organization no longer needed his services and that his decision to back out of a contract with the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House was “indefensible” due to the firm’s decision to “bow to political pressure. “ Read the entire letter here.

King & Spalding, with Paul Clement as the lead attorney, successfully defended the NRA in a Supreme Court case last year dealing with the Second Amendment.

Clement, former Solicitor General of the U.S. under George W. Bush, was all set to defend DOMA, but resigned after King & Spalding decided not to take the case. Clement now works for a small law firm in Washington, D.C., and is staying on to defend DOMA.

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Breaking: King & Spalding attorney Paul Clement leaves firm to keep defending DOMA

Paul Clement, the attorney hired by the U.S. House to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, has resigned his position at King & Spalding after the law firm decided not to defend the case, according to Politico.com, a website covering politics and other news.

Politico writer Josh Gerstein shares part of 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. Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do ... I recognized from the outset that this statute implicate very sensitive issues that prompt strong views on both sides. But having undertaken the representation, I believe there is no honorable court for me but to complete it," writes Clement.

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Atlantans jump in to scold King & Spalding for defending DOMA

An Atlanta litigation paralegal sent an email to the managing partner of the locally-based King & Spalding law firm to express her dismay at the otherwise gay-friendly firm for its decision to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

Pam Rymin, who is straight, also took the opportunity to introduce the firm to her co-worker, Joel Tucker, and his husband Robert Todd, who were legally married in Connecticut on June 10, 2010. She is a litigation paralegal with Buckley & Klein, a law firm focused on assisting those who say they have been discriminated against in the workplace.

"When I read yesterday that K&S has agreed to represent the Congressional GOP in its fight to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, thereby seeking to continue to deny civil rights to a large portion of America’s population, I was very dismayed. Actually I was so angry it took me a full day to be calm enough to write this email," Rymin wrote in an email to Mason Stephenson, managing partner of the Atlanta office.