The Key To Success In Delaware

An order staying most discovery in the Delaware Court of Chancery (Vice Chancellor Glasscock) admonishes counsel

As I have tried to convey, unsuccessfully, litigation in this forum is bounded by rules, but those rules assume that norms of behavior, implicitly followed, will inform actions of counsel. Without the norms, the rules are impotent. One of the perhaps underappreciated keys to the success of Delaware as a litigation forum is the strength of the traditions of our bar, and the extent to which even hard-fought litigation is self-cabined by respect for these traditions and norms, and of counsel for one another.

I will not repeat here some of the picayune disputes in the competing scheduling orders, because there are legitimate differences between the parties that it was appropriate to submit to me, and which I deal with here. I granted expedition on the contract issues because it appeared to me that complete relief, should the Plaintiffs prevail, likely depended upon it. I declined to enter a stay of other discovery in the case, leaving it to the discretion of counsel to decide how to proceed on such non-expedited discovery in light of the demands of the impending November litigation, and in light of the benefits of avoiding duplicate discovery that a stay might compel. Again, this has proved unwise.

 (Mike Frisch)