Clement resigned one law firm and accepted another within minutes this week. In his new capacity, he will serve as senior counsel to the House Bipartisan Legal Advisor Group that will oversee the defense of DOMA. In a prepared statement, Clement said, ''My resignation is, of course, prompted by the firm's decision to withdraw as counsel for the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the United States House of Representatives in defense of Section III of the Defense of Marriage Act''. He continued by saying his decision wasn't based because of any ''strongly held views about this statute'', but rather, ''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 positions is what lawyers do.''
It's believed King and Spalding folded under pressure from various gay and lesbian groups for defending the 1996 law that defined marriage as a union between man and woman. The Justice Department, under the Obama Administration, no longer defends it and has cited constitutionality issues as the reason why.
Paul Clement worked for nearly four years as U.S. solicitor general in the George W. Bush Administration. The Wisconsin native received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and then earned his master's in economics from Darwin College at the University of Cambridge. He was successful in his completion of the American Parliamentary Debate Association and he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. While there, he was the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.
After Clement completed law school and passed the bar, he clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and from there, he clerked for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. Soon thereafter, he found himself on several Judiciary Committees before accepting a position at King & Spalding, where he took the lead in the appellate practice. For a while, he served as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center and then eventually joined the US Department of Justice. He accepted President Bush's nomination as acting Attorney General following the resignation of Alberto Gonzales. He was in that position a mere twenty four hours before resigning, though some question the reasons.
Clement's new position is effective immediately.
