Best reason to withdraw as counsel

Most lawyers have had cause to withdraw from a case: an unruly client, a client who hasn’t paid his bill in months, or maybe even a late-breaking conflict of interest.

Fewer, though, have given the reason a pair of Covington & Burling partners gave U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte for why their co-counsel, Eric Holder, cannot continue to defend UBS Financial Services Inc. against a putative racial discrimination class action (now on appeal) brought by three black former employees.

“Mr. Holder has been nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama to serve as Attorney General in the new presidential administration,” they wrote in a short note to the presiding judge on Friday. “Therefore UBSFS requests leave of this Court to withdraw the appearance of Mr. Holder as counsel for UBSFS.”

I doubt Messitte, a Clinton appointee who purposefully scheduled his (semi)retirement for after President George W. Bush leaves office, will deny the motion. I also doubt the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will be as friendly an audience when Holder comes before them for his confirmation hearing early next year.

BRENDAN KEARNEY, The Daily Record