Delaware

Delaware’s bench has more women. The Chancery bar is still catching up.

Litigation Daily

In the past decade, Delaware has gradually filled vacancies on its courts with more women than ever before. The Court of Chancery is currently led by its first-ever female chancellor, and two of the five sitting vice chancellors are women. (With former Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn recently confirmed to the state’s Supreme Court, there’s one open seat.)

But female litigators appearing before those judges say the number of women leading and arguing cases in the Court of Chancery, while improving, is lagging in proportion to the bench.

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It’s the Delaware Way or the highway: A primer on why Delaware’s corporate bar is so into civility

Litigation Daily

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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Here’s how noncompetes are being interpreted in contractarian Delaware

Law.com, Litigation Daily

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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‘Opportunity for protection’: What to expect in Delaware corporate litigation in 2026

Delaware Business Court Insider

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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‘Clearway,’ safe harbors and constitutionality: A look back at the bill that split the Delaware bar

Delaware Business Court Insider

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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To litigate or legislate? The Texas approach to building corporate law

Litigation Daily

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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Foot fault? Del. courts weigh when harm from corporate bylaws is beyond theoretical

Litigation Daily

Imagine you’re playing tennis. You’re about to serve, but the line judge stops you. You stepped over the baseline before you hit the ball. There’s a small but persistent group of people who travel from one tennis match to another, focused solely on trying to catch people making that same misstep and getting officials to make a call penalizing them for it.

Maybe you and some others are critical of that small group and believe they’re making a big deal out of a harmless error. But it could be argued that a harmless error still breaks the rules, and maybe that small group is doing something good by trying to catch them.

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A brief history behind DExit and the biggest beef in Del. corporate law

Litigation Daily

When I’m not covering corporate litigation, one of my guilty pleasures is watching reality television shows on Bravo.

Now that Tom Girardi is done with both, corporate litigation and Bravo don’t typically have much overlap. But in the past two months, the public feuding I’ve seen both during legislative hearings and online has been more dramatic than anything I’m expecting from the “Vanderpump Rules” recasting.

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‘Conversations are happening:’ clients haven’t stopped asking their attorneys whether Delaware is their best option for incorporation

Delaware Business Court Insider

Delaware’s newly-enacted changes to its corporate code were designed to keep the state attractive to corporations and keep the revenue they bring to state coffers.

In the first weeks following the passage of Senate Bill 21, litigators and transactional attorneys are still having the same conversations with their clients weighing the pros and cons of incorporating in Delaware as opposed to emerging jurisdictions like Texas or Nevada, each of which have been taking actions of their own to attract corporations in recent months.

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Do sharpened definitions in Delaware’s corporate law amendments afford a ‘clear playbook’ or place Chancery in ‘straitjacket’?

Delaware Business Court Insider

Much of the debate about Delaware Senate Bill 21 stems from proposed amendments to Section 144 of the DGCL, including more concrete parameters for who qualifies as a controlling shareholder, what makes a director independent and how a deal can be shielded from the entire fairness standard.

Supporters of SB 21, which has been passed by the Senate and is scheduled to go before the House Judiciary Committee this week, say the so-called safe harbor procedures outlined in the legislation would give corporations clarity on how to properly proceed with a transaction and ultimately cut down on the number of transactions challenged in the Court of Chancery.

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