Irascible tort lawyer Joe Jamail once said, “I’d rather have a nose on my ass than go to Delaware for any reason.”
That was in response to the Delaware Supreme Court formally reprimanding Jamail for his conduct during a deposition. More than 30 years later, the Delaware bar still has a culture of being significantly more civil and friendly than other jurisdictions’ norms, a set of standards for legal practice often referred to as “the Delaware Way.”
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The majority of law firm leaders with an eye on AI tools view them as at least somewhat reliable in predicting how cases might turn out, but they’re generally not treating large language models as a crystal ball that can calculate the likelihood of winning or losing a case outright.
Instead, attorneys are more often using the predictive functions of AI to corroborate or identify potential holes in their thinking about litigation strategy.
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In mid-March, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a decision concluding South Korean gaming company Krafton Inc. breached its agreement to purchase Unknown Worlds Entertainment, creator of the video game Subnautica, in an effort to evade a $250 million earnout agreement.
There were several attention-grabbing elements to the case, but what litigators immediately zeroed in on was how the court cited Krafton’s CEO’s ChatGPT conversations as evidence.
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Despite a drop in fresh bankruptcy filings in Delaware, three law firms have launched three new Wilmington offices since the start of 2026, predicting a busy second half of the year given ongoing geopolitical turmoil and economic uncertainty.
Am Law Second Hundred and midsize firms Ice Miller, Connell Foley, and Lowenstein Sandler have all opened Delaware offices since the start of 2026 with the help of lateral bankruptcy partners, while other firms, including Akerman and FBT Gibbons, have added on partners in litigation and IP practices.
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It’s every lawyer’s go-to answer for pretty much every yes or no question: “It depends.”
“It depends” is also the most concise way to describe Delaware’s evolving stance on the enforceability of noncompetes at a time when the topic is getting a lot of attention nationally and some states are passing legislation to mark themselves as categorically for or against trade restrictions in employment contracts.
Delaware courts don’t rubber-stamp noncompetes, but they also don’t have a ban on them like the ones that a handful of other states have enacted through legislation and that the FTC floated before abandoning the effort last year.
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I’ve watched a lot of arguments in my time covering litigation, which means I’ve seen a lot of lawyers wearing essentially the same thing in the courtroom.
The overwhelming majority of the time, those outfits include a white shirt and a black, navy or charcoal suit. I’ve always wondered about what’s behind that near-uniform. Is it one of those things attorneys just do because that’s what their mentors did? Is it to keep one element simple during an otherwise complex event? And are litigators who deviate from that formula doing so to make a statement?
I asked litigators what they consider when getting dressed for court. More than anything else, those who do go for the white shirt and dark suit said they do so because they want to avoid anything that might distract from what they’re saying.
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In 2026, Delaware’s corporate bar is expecting to see the continuation of several litigation trends that gained momentum in 2025.
Litigators are also looking to the courts to offer clarification on how changes adopted in 2025 to the Delaware General Corporation Law will apply in practice.
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When asked about the most significant development in corporate law in 2025, attorneys who practice in Delaware—litigators on both sides and transactional lawyers alike—all refer back to Senate Bill 21, the changes it made to the Delaware General Corporation Law, and the questions about its constitutionality that are pending before the Supreme Court.
Discussion over those amendments has been ongoing throughout nearly the entire year. Senate Bill 21 was introduced in mid-February, immediately sparking a discussion over whether the legislation gave parameters for controller-involved transactions that offered needed clarity or if those parameters overstepped into the Delaware courts’ jurisdiction, as well as whether SB 21 was a necessary measure to protect Delaware’s corporate franchise and the lawyers who work within it.
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It’s finally happening: the big one.
That’s what I’ve had countless litigators and transactional lawyers alike call the appeal of Elon Musk’s compensation case in Delaware when I ask them what cases they’re watching closely. As in, “Well, of course, the big one is Tornetta v. Musk.”
The Delaware Supreme Court will hear argument on the big one today, and after more than six years, all that’s left is for the court to write what’s likely to be one big opinion.
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When I started thinking about what to write about the one-year anniversary of Texas launching its business courts, two things struck me.
One, despite knowing what’s going on in Texas now being a sizable chunk of my job, I’ve never actually been there (unless you count the time American Airlines changed my flight schedule to include a some-expenses-paid overnight layover in a hotel just outside DFW).
Two, I can’t help but compare the conversation about how Texas’ legislature interacts with its business courts to what we’ve seen and heard this year out of Delaware. The central question in both venues is how much say legislators should have in shaping business law, and how much should be left to the courts.
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