Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Case

The Los Angeles Times ^ | 8/4/05 | jamese777

[jamese777]

Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Case In 1996, activists won a landmark anti-bias ruling with the aid of the high court nominee. By Richard A. Serrano Times Staff Writer

August 4, 2005

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for gay rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

Then a lawyer specializing in appellate work, the conservative Roberts helped represent the gay rights activists as part of his law firm's pro bono work. He did not write the legal briefs or argue the case before the high court, but he was instrumental in reviewing filings and preparing oral arguments, according to several lawyers intimately involved in the case.

Gay rights activists at the time described the court's 6-3 ruling as the movement's most important legal victory. The dissenting justices were those to whom Roberts is frequently likened for their conservative ideology: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

[dsutah]

You know, I thought of this very case also!

[bkepley]

--Of course it isn't. That's why I said it's a 'little like . . .' It was an analogy--

I'd say it's a little like an anology.

[bkepley]

-You know, I thought of this very case also!

John Adams is probably my favorite American. Yeah, he screwed up too, many times. These days he would not have stood a chance of being appointed dog catcher.

[ModelBreaker]

I'd say it's a little like an anology.

But that's not exactly what I said :)

[BikerNYC]

Roberts advanced a very bad constitutional position when he didn't have to.

Yes, he did have to. The firm took the cause on as a client. It would have been a violation of his fiduciary obligations to his partners and the firm's client to refuse to help in the representation of the client. It makes no difference if the client is paying a fee or not paying a fee. If the tax department called him up and asked him for his advice, he could not refuse it because he did not happen to like the way the client conducted business. If he cared that much about it, he would have had to leave the firm.

[NeoCaveman]

One of many instances of Bush and his henchmen conveniently revealing a soap-opera level of memory loss on important matters.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/4/11415/23695

Plagarizing Kos again are we MM? Atleast your silly thoughts are not your own.

[ModelBreaker]

The firm took the cause on as a client. It would have been a violation of his fiduciary obligations to his partners and the firm's client to refuse to help in the representation of the client.

That's not the way it works either under the Rules of Professional Conduct or practically. Just because one of his partners has a pro bono case does not obligate every partner to sign on.

[CA Conservative]

He represented the gay rights as a lawyer and won the case 6-3.

This is such an idiotic argument. It is not going to change anyone's mind. Those who pretend they were "on the fence" were just looking for something to justify their preconception. What those people want is not a non-activist justice - they want someone who will be an activist on their side!

Get the facts straight. Roberts' firm did a case pro bono for the gay rights crowd. The attorney representing them asked Roberts (her colleague) to review the filings and serve on a moot court to prepare her for oral arguments. Roberts agreed to help her prepare.

There is nothing in the report that indicates that Roberts agreed with their position, that he helped her to research the case or wrote her brief. What he did was make sure she knew what to expect when she went in front of the Supremes, which Roberts had done many times.

Things like this make me ashamed to call myself a conservative. We are so quick to eat our own, and to slime anyone who might have taken any action that we, in our self-righteousness, consider to not be "truly conservative".

Grow up, people. Based on his writings from the Reagan and Bush administrations, based on the few decisions he hwas involved in on the DC Circuit, and based on the answers he gave the judiciary committee, I am very comfortable with Roberts. I think he will truly be a conservative originalist. If you feel differently, fine, but don't attempt to claim that your feelings are based on anything except your own bias and desire for a flame-throwing, conservative activist judge.

[BikerNYC]

Whether the case is pro bono or not is irrelevant. If the firm has a client, every lawyer in the firm has an obligation to zealously represent that client. The payment of fees to the firm has no bearing on a lawyer's responsibility once the firm has accepted a client.

[nwrep]

That's not the way it works either under the Rules of Professional Conduct or practically. Just because one of his partners has a pro bono case does not obligate every partner to sign on.

IN a way it does. Every partner has to have a certain, shall we say, "quota" of pro-bono cases every year, as part of the contract. If in Roberts' case, he was below that quota, or not participating in another pro-bono case at the time, then yes, it is an unwritten rule of professional conduct that he would be obliged to take it on.

[Ol' Sparky]

The left is doing this to turn us off on Roberts. Which tells me he is really a conservative.

What convoluted logic.

That he worked for free for homosexual rights activists is evidence he is a conservative?

[Ol' Sparky]

What is dimwitted is to think Roberts would work from FREE and DONATE his time to help gays rights activists if he didn't believe in their cause. Keep drinking the Kool Aid and believing that Supreme Court is going to change when the legal counsel of gay rights activists is being nominated. That's brain dead.

[Ol' Sparky]

His willingness to defend Gays pro-bono says zilch about his personal beliefs. You don't understand lawyers.

Are you seriously implying a lawyer were work for FREE and DONATE his time to a group of gay rights activists if he didn't believe in their cause?

[Shinano]

This is deliberately delusional, or else simply ignorant. Having worked in a firm similar to H&H, I can tell you that pro bono, by it's very nature, is voluntary and discretionary. Genuinely conservative lawyers, of comparable stature and experience to Roberts, contributed their pro bono time to cases like the Texas reverse discrimination case, on behalf of a gutsy, noble young woman who was denied admission because she was white. Where was Roberts when that was gong on? Working on behalf of radical homosexuals to overturn the democratic votes of the people of Colorado. His choice of pro bono cases is especially revealing because, as Ms. Coulter has pointed out, the man has declined to stick his neck out in the arena on behalf of any conservative cause where it was not part of his job or career advancement.

[Calpernia]

If you think there is no propaganda war on Roberts....

come over here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1456856/posts

[Ol' Sparky]

Either it's true Roberts donated his time and worked from free to aid the cause of homosexual rights activists or he didn't. If he did, he's not originalist, Scalia-like or a conservative.

[Calpernia]

Since I don't know the policies and dissemination practices of the company he was interning for, I can't respond to your question.

I can say though, there is propaganda flying everywhere on him.

Propaganda is being spun by the left. I take that as a positive.