Katrina Dewey of LawDragon weaves an interesting history of the current state of the Delaware judiciary, which got us thinking about where this Murderer’s Row came from.
All of the major firms have appeared before them at one time or another, but which of the judges have their own BigLaw backgrounds?
It’s horrendously incestuous, with two major firms accounting for six of the ten judges on the courts we care about (Chancery and Supreme).
After the jump.
This is quite a stretch for us, as our background is purely corporate. Of course, that means the Delaware courts are pretty much the only courts whose opinions we read, so we’re not flying completely blind here.
Chancery
The Court of Chancery consists of one chancellor and four vice chancellors. The chancellor and vice chancellors are nominated by the Governor and must be confirmed by the Senate for 12-year terms. The Delaware Court of Chancery is a non-jury trial court that serves as Delaware’s court of original and exclusive equity jurisdiction, and adjudicates a wide variety of cases involving trusts, real property, guardianships, civil rights, and commercial litigation. The chancellor and vice chancellors must be learned in the law and must be Delaware citizens.
Deal lawyers’ take: Blah blah blah it should really just say “the source from which most relevant corporate law springs” (not to start a whole big textualism/activism discussion here, you know what we mean).
Chancellor William B. Chandler III, the captain of this ship, has been on the Chancery bench since 1989, at the helm since 1997. His BigLaw experience consists of a few years as an associate at Morris Nichols.
Vice Chancellor Stephen P. Lamb has significant BigLaw chops. He was a Skadden partner from 1983 to 1995, then came to the bench in Chandler’s spot when he was promoted in 1997.
Vice Chancellor Leo E. Strine, Jr. joined the court in November, 1998 at the ripe old age of THIRTY FREAKING FOUR (34!!!). He graduated from Penn in 1988, did two clerkships, spent two years as a corporate litigator at Skadden, worked for then-governor now-Senator Thomas Carper and popped up at court. The Deal did an extensive profile on him late last year that’s a fascinating, but long, read.
Vice Chancellor John W. Noble has been on the bench since November 2000 but has no BigLaw experience. He’s the swing vote between the Skadden faction (Lamb, Strine) and the Morris Nichols faction (Chandler, Parsons).
Vice Chancellor Donald F. Parsons is the most recent addition to the bench, joining in October 2003. He was an IP partner at Morris Nichols, where he spent 24 years.
Supreme Court
The Delaware Supreme Court is the highest court in the State of Delaware. The Court has final appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases in which the sentence exceeds certain minimums, in civil cases as to final judgments and for certain other orders of the Court of Chancery, the Superior Court, and the Family Court. The Supreme Court has discretionary jurisdiction to issue writs of prohibition, quo warranto, certiorari, mandamus or to accept appeals of certain non-final orders or certified questions
Deal lawyers’ take: Sole function is to agree with or benchslap (see, e.g., Ryan v. Lyondell) Chancery on corporate-law issues.
Chief Justice Myron T. Steele has been chief since 2004, a supreme court justice since 2000, and prior to that was on Chancery from 1994 to 2000. His private practice experience was at Prickett, Jones and Elliott.
Justice Randy J. Holland is on his second 12-year term and is “the youngest person to serve on the Delaware Supreme Court.” Somehow he found time before his appointment to make partner at Morris Nichols.
Justice Carolyn Berger is also a Chancery veteran, sitting there from 1984 to 1994, when she was elevated to the Supremes. She spent five years as an associate at Skadden.
Justice Jack B. Jacobs spent 18 years at Chancery, from 1985 to 2003. His private-practice experience was from 1968 to 1985 as a commercial litigator at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor.
Justice Henry duPont Ridgely is the newest Supreme, appointed to the bench in 2004, after 14 years on the “Superior Court of Delaware”, which we can’t imagine has anything superior about it compared to Chancery. He spent 10 years at “Ridgely & Ridgely” but probably got more play off the duPont part of his name.
So there we have it, 3 Skadden, 3 Morris Nicholls, 3 small firms we’ve never heard of, and one unknown.
Technically not a Delaware court, but even the District of Delaware might be getting a Skadden lawyer. The early favorite of the nominees is Andre Bouchard, who worked with Chancellor Lamb at Skadden and left with him to start their own short-lived firm (Lamb went on the bench a year later).
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