News (USA)

Virginia AG cuts ties with King & Spalding for dropping DOMA defense

Virginia AG cuts ties with King & Spalding for dropping DOMA defense
Ken Cuccinelli

Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, has fired the Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding for backing out of its contract with the U.S. House to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court.

Cuccinelli, who has previously publicly stated his opposition to “special rights for homosexuals,” notified King & Spalding in a letter to Joseph Lynch at the firm’s Washington D.C. office, citing its “weakness” as the basis for severing the relationship.

“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.”

Cuccinelli added that “Virginia seeks firms of commitment, courage, strength and toughness, and unfortunately, what the world has learned of King & Spalding, is that your firm utterly lacks such qualities.”

King & Spalding Chairman Robert D. Hays, Jr., announced Monday that the firm was withdrawing its representation of the U.S. House to defend DOMA, and said the process used for “vetting the engagement was inadequate.”

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