When lawyers turn down fees

The New York Times has a fascinating story claiming that prestigious law firms won't touch the bigots' side of the homosexual marriage cases at the Supreme Court.

Before I get started, I have to say I don't believe elites exist. If they could, then big corporations would not be run by the incompetents that do run them.

Adam Liptak comes out of the gate running:

  Leading law firms are willing to represent tobacco companies accused of lying about their deadly products, factories that spew pollution, and corporations said to be complicit in torture and murder abroad. But standing up for traditional marriage has turned out to be too much for the elite bar.

Zing!

But it could have been even zingier if he'd mentioned the elite forms that are on retainer from despots and mass murderers.

Still, the fact that his case could have been made even stronger does not detract from the dramatic situation: Lawyers turning down fees over a moral principle -- or is it just business calculation?

 “Firms are trying to recruit the best talent from the best law schools,” said Dale Carpenter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, “and the overwhelming majority of them want to work in a community of respect and diversity.”

Carpenter, Liptak does not say, is a well-known advocate for homosexual rights from a libertarian standpoint. 

In any event, we've come a long way from the days when white shoe firms discriminated against Jews, women, blacks, etc. and were proud of it.

When rightwingers like Rand Paul say they want to take the country back, that's what they want to take it back to.