Andrew Cohen, who has served as chief legal analyst and legal editor for CBS News and won a Murrow Award as one of the nation's leading legal analysts and commentators, writes in The Atlantic:

The Human Rights Campaign's misguided case against Paul Clement's law firm ignores the basic tenets behind the counsel of law

The Los Angeles Times's editorial writers have it right when they point out that the Human Rights Campaign has it wrong about Congress's decision to hire Paul Clement to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. Clement's fancy law firm has been hired by Republicans in the House of Representatives to pick up where the Justice Department left off when it decided a few months ago that a key section of the statute should no longer be defended by the government in pending DOMA cases wending their way through the federal courts.

Every client has a right to a lawyer. In a perfect world, every client can choose and pay for a lawyer, and defending the constitutionality of a federal statute (which with approximately 50 percent of all Americans still agree) is no disgrace. If I were Rep. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, I would probably have chosen Clement, too, to take up the cause. The former U.S. Solicitor General is an excellent attorney and advocate, a conservative, and someone who is familiar with political cases and Supreme Court procedure. It's a no-brainer.