Would you defend before the Supreme Court laws that made it practically impossible for your large corporate clients to transfer married employees to half the states in the Union?

The New York Times seems to have missed this point.   There are plenty of lawyers in small and medium sized firms that don’t represent large corporations.  And those lawyers are perfectly capable of defending marriage laws that are inconsistent with laws in other states.  It is obvious from the quality of the briefing of the marriage case that both sides have access to excellent lawyers.