Yesterday, i had the pleasure of testifying before the House Administration committee on protecting political speech, particularly with respect to elections, and it was a pleasure to have as a colleague on that panel Justin Reamer from the rnc who you all know well, and also our Judicial Affairs colleague audrey perry martin. All three of us were able to talk about the effective viewpoint discrimination that is becoming rampant in our society with cancel culture permeating every factor of our lives and certainly those who practice in the law firm. Most of us have had to confront that. We also see in our lives historical challenges to our liberty in this country. As i have been going around this country talking to republican groups who feel disheartened with the level of autocracy that our government is imposing on us, one of the common themes that i like to use in my speeches is the word courage. Courage is something that is underestimated in our lives and it has caused me over the last couple of years to really think about what it means to demonstrate courage. Courage is demonstrated by lawyers who take on popular causes and during covid, many people in this room stepped up to go against the tide of what everyone in society was telling us and insist on our Constitutional Rights not being abridged by state and federal governments. There could be no better example of a lawyer who has exemplified courage in his daily life throughout his career in paul clement. He needs no introduction to mandates in this room but to do him justice, i do want to mention that many of his fine accomplishments. Of course, paul is a foremost Supreme Court advocate of our generation and has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court including mcconnell versus fec, United States versus booker, mgm versus grokster, hobby lobby versus burwell, and, because. A tremendously broad scope of different types of causes in law and he has also argued many significant cases in the lower courts as well. Paul served as the 43rd solicitor general of the United States from 20052008. Before his confirmation, he served as the acting solicitor general nearly one year and Principal Deputy solicitor general for over three years. Before his distinguished career as a litigator, he clerked for Justice Lauren silverman for the u. S. Court of appeals the d. C. Circuit and for just an incident scalia and served as chief counsel of the u. S. Senate subcommittee on the constitution, federalism, and property rights. The honorable edward meets the third award is told bestowed by our organization annually was upheld the rule of law in adverse political challenges was given to paul this year to receive the award because he has twice shown them compliance with a Prestigious Law Firm when the leftist mob demand he dropped a client who no longer deserve his representation. An ethical lawyer would remain loyal to his clients as paul has done but we all know that is not an is a choice to make particularly in todays overheated and vitriolic environment. In 2011, paul resigned from king and spalding when it decided to abandon its representation of the house of representatives as they sought to defend the defense of marriage act. Paul wrote to the firm, representation should not be abandoned because a clients legal position is strongly unpopular in certain quarters. Defending unpopular positions is what lawyers do. Having undertaken a representation, i believe there is no honorable course but for me to complete it. Just last year, paul won a second major amendment Supreme Court case in the morning and by the afternoon, he had left corcoran and alice to form his own law firm. Kirkland decided the king and spalding before it no longer represent clients in a particular space in this case the Second Amendment withdraw from its representation of ongoing legal matters. Not just not take on new cases but dump clients a hot potato. Again, paul chose his clients interest over his personal interest. He could not abandon ongoing representation just because a clients position is unpopular in some circles. I want to read the letter from general attorney edward meese. It is a pleasure for me to join your colleagues and friends its honoring you with the Republican NationalLawyers Association award for your distinguished service to our country and to the Legal Profession. Although my limited mobility it prevents me from being with you in person, i wanted to express my congratulations to you and my appreciation for your outstanding public service. As one the leading attorneys in our nations capital, you have distinguished yourself by serving as the 43rd solicitor general and its your private practice of law. In these positions, you have represented the basic ideas of principles embodied in the constitution and the legal traditions of our great country. You have been stalwart in your representation of clients that may have been popular in some quarters and have carried out your responsibility even if it meant vocational changes. Your courage and tenacity have been a great example to other lawyers throughout the land and deserve our appreciation. During your career, you provided legal representation for many pro bono clients and also taught at several law schools to the benefit of numerous young lawyers. You are one of the few lawyers to have argued more than 100 cases before the u. S. Supreme court in your impressive record of victories have motivated news media to refer to you as a lawyer superstar. Her excellent representation of so many clients throughout the political spectrum with different points of view has made a great contribution to the quality of justice. Particularly important as a solicitor general has been your protection of Constitutional Government and the rule of law. You have persevered through this task despite unfair criticism by some adversaries and special interest groups. In doing this, you have upheld the highest ideals of the Legal Profession. Graduations on receiving this prestigious award, and best wishes for continued success. Now, i want to welcome paul to the podium to share some remarks with us. Please welcome him. [applause] mr. Clement thank you very much. Thank you very much. That ovation means a lot to me in the means a lot to me. A letter from general meese means the world to me. I am really honored to be with you and honored to be receiving this award. It is a particular honor for me to receive an award named after general meese. He is somebody who has had such a distinguished career in public service. Most of us know him from his service in the Reagan Administration at the federal level but long before that, he was serving with governor reagan and the Reagan Administration came to a close almost 35 years ago. General meese has been a constant presence in washington and he is a great legal scholar but also it means a lot to lawyers of my generation and younger to have somebody around who is a tangible link to the Reagan Administration and at the reagan revolution. So i am really tickled to have too received an award named after him. I feel a little bit that im getting this award largely because i cant keep a job. [laughter] i keep on leaving these large law firms. But in both instances, it has been a very clear choice because not lame but easy choice but a clear choice. It has been a clear choice because it was not a matter of not taking on a client. It was a matter of discontinuing an ongoing representation where there was already the attorneyclient elation ship and in this most recent case, it was a longstanding relationship as the case moved its way throughout the legal system all the way to the Supreme Court. So, the choice was clear. It wasnt necessarily easy ended require some financial sacrifice, so might better have is here and i would like to thank her for her walking out with me. [applause] i think that justification in both of these cases was that the representation at a certain point had become so popular in certain circles that it become that for business. Bad for business. I doubt that myself actually, and in my experience having left these firms into instances and going to smaller firms, my experience is that clients actually like lawyers that are loyal to their clients. I dont think it is bad for business at all, and i think most clients are willing to have it explained to them that its really not their business who else i am presenting. You should be careful what you wish for because, again, in my experience, if you are not popular with somebody, you are not in litigation. [laughter] so, todays less popular clients are saying maybe we should move on from, you may been that client you may be that client in the nottoodistant future. It is not right when they make a judgment that this is bad for business but ultimately, it does not matter because the Legal Profession is a profession. It is not just a business. I can certainly think there are doctors who it would be good for business if they did an necessary medical treatment they would not do it because it is a profession. There are journalists that might find it better for business to just give up a source. Whats the big deal . You are getting a lot of pressure and someone was to put you in contempt of court, just give up the source. But they would not do it because it is a profession. Unfortunately, some of the large law firms have lost sight of the fact that in our efforts to do so well and be so profitable, we are still at the a profession. If we lose that, we lose something probably important. But my choice in both these instances was clear because it was an ongoing reps plantation and it certainly my view that at that point, we simple he cant move on and drop the client because it is politically expedient. If they have broken their vows to you or done something criminal, then you can discontinue representation but you cannot discontinue it in my view just because it is bad for business or one of your other clients would prefer you to do something else. But theres a lot of questions in a think a lot of people in this room have dealt with situations where it is not quite as clearcut because while a lawyer is obligated to maintain an ongoing representation, they are not obligated to take on a new client if new client is going to be bad for business. I think what we have seen in big law over the last decade in particular is that the culture of the profession, which was of course we represent unpopular clients, it is what lawyers do. It is certainly what litigators do. After all, some of the great professional paragons is the representation of a capital defendant. Capital dependent defendants are typically accused of killing somebody and you dont say that is awful we are not going to represent them. In the same way that is built into the profession and we seem to have migrated from of course lawyers represent unpopular clients to of course big law firms are not going to represent certain unpopular clients. As i said in almost every case or controversy, the constitution refers to it, article three, it is a controversy for a reason. There are two sides to it, they each think the other side is controversial. But the representations that are coming out of the biggest law firms seem to be skewed in one direction in particular, and the numbers bear this out. Depict the two most obvious examples, if you look at the amicus briefs that were filed in the dobbs case last term or the affirmative action cases this term, it a clean sweep. They are on the liberal side of the case, there are multiple law firms, the largest law firms are represented. On the others of the case there are no m1 law m1 lung 100 law firms represented. The difference of course is pretty obvious pretty. It does not mean there are not amicus briefs being filed on both sides, a lot of people in this room have filed briefs on the conservative side of those cases but it is not being done by the big law firms. I suppose one could say if you have been around this town for a while that abortion is different, maybe race is different. It struck me as particularly unusual and remarkable that in another case from last term the West Virginia epa cased case the case that gave rise to the major question doctrine. Heres a situation where it is an Environmental Government Agency and the environment or groups against business. You would think that the m law 100 firms would all be on the side of West Virginia and business and not on the side of the epa. You particularly think that if you understood that the argument being made, the major questions doctrine argument is probably the hottest thing in big log right now in terms of challenging government action. If you actually look at the law firms that filed amicus briefs in that case, it was for to zip on the epa side for big law with no big law firms filing on behalf of West Virginia. So something very stark is going on here, i think this is very bad for the courts ultimately and i alluded to this last night. We have an adversary system of justice, the courts, the justices, they all depend on hearing from both sides in the case and controversy. If one side has all the resources of the m law one and the other side does not that can make a real difference. Particularly in cases that are laborintensive, and i dont need to tell folks in this room that sometimes election law cases can be particularly laborintensive at the trial court level. So two of the system in one direction is just bad for the system, its bad for the judges. I also think its bad for the whole Legal Profession because it starts to communicate this view, at least implicitly that theres only one right answer in these controversies. There is only one respectable side of these disputes going all the way to the Supreme Court and it doesnt really matter what the Supreme Court itself decides. So it doesnt matter, it would be one thing if big law was just not taking the losing side of some of these controversies, that might show discretion. That might show judgment. But that is not the way it is working out, typically the m law when it is filing amicus briefs lucidly on the losing sight of many of these cases. If you go back to my recent experience the last time i left big law, in some ways i suppose it was about my client. But ultimately given the timing, the fact that a decision was made after the Supreme Court vindicated the Constitutional Rights of my client by a six to three vote, it really says more about the firms view of the court they it does about the firms view of any particular client. And it communicates a very pernicious message. That big law is on one side of these controversies without regard to what the Supreme Court says and if the Supreme Court takes the other side they should be harshly criticized and lawyers should effectively be asked to leave for having the temerity to take the winning side in the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of an individual asserting their Constitutional Rights. All of this would be bad enough if it were an isolated phenomenon but unfortunately it corresponds with two trends that i think end up reinforcing each other and reinforcing the problem. First, it corresponds to a change in rhetoric about the court and about criticism of the court. The Supreme Court in my view has always been a fair source of criticism for its decisions and if the Supreme Court issues a decision that you think is incorrect or that is poorly reasoned, or you think that dissent had the better of the argument, it is perfectly appropriate to criticize the decision. If you think the court is not taking enough cases, or doing something in a particular way, i think that is a fair subject of criticism. I will even have a little of that in a couple minutes. But there is a difference between criticizing the courts methodology and particular decisions and calling into question the very legitimacy and integrity of the court. I think there were a lot of years were people in this room would look to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court would decide a case in Justice Scalia or Justice Thomas would author a ringing dissent and it was fair. Perfectly fair to criticize the majority, and to praise the position articulated by the justices in dissent. But i dont think people took to the extremes of going after the integrity and the legitimacy of the institution. I think we have seen that happen , i think some of the criticism coming from the left is perfectly appropriate and perfect particular decisions but some of that goes beyond questioning the legitimacy of the court. In my view that is a dangerous game to be playing. If you study the Supreme Court through history, it is not in a position to enforce all of its decisions. Its legitimacy has to be built up over time and its been a careful effort that has literally taken centuries, and i think we are blessed to have chief Justice Marshall in the early days who picked his battles and build the legitimacy of the court. It is no accident that chief Justice Marshall picked a case where he limited the power of the Supreme Court itself to establish judicial review. Because nobody had to enforce that decision excep