1: Paragraph 28 So why don't they do that, if it would be easier and faster? Because the big legal business in Delaware is corporation litigation, and nobody here wants to streamline the process and so cut down on the profits from it. Most lawyers in Wilmington (which is the bulk of the lawyers in Delaware, using that word in several different senses) are or want to be local counsel for out-of-state lawyers in corporation cases; the ethics rules governing lawyers say they can't split fees except in the same proportions they split the work, and the only work local counsel can usually claim to do is supply the expertise on local practice and precedents. Because the procedural rules in Superior Court are very similar to those of the federal courts, and the Chancery Court rules are virtually identical to the federal rules, lawyers from anywhere in the country already know as much as they need to about local practice here, so all that's left for local counsel to do is provide gossip about the judge or other lawyers in the case and citations to prior opinions that have not been published in the national reporters. So Chancery Court issues tons of opinions that aren't published, say the same thing over and over again, and give local counsel the right to claim a large percentage of the fee for reviewing pertinent opinions.

1: Paragraph 29 Delaware is the corporation capital, and some writers have said corporation whore, of the country: More corporations are chartered here than in all the other states put together, and Delaware actively encourages that with its laws governing corporate affairs and taxes. When you're going to sue a corporation, you have a choice about where to do it, and one of the choices is always a court in the state where the corporation is chartered, whether it does any business there or not. So most corporations can be sued in Delaware because they're incorporated here.

1: Paragraph 30 Until November 1991 everybody knew a corporation could always sue somebody else in the state where the corporation plaintiff was chartered, but then the Superior Court handed down a decision throwing out a case filed by a Delaware corporation against a whole slew of insurance companies for not covering claims against the plaintiff for hazardous waste dumps. The Chancery Court would never have made a ruling like that, and the lawyers here are hopping and howling at the prospect of losing the chance to be local counsel in some of those cases — they're trying to get the legislature to pass a law guaranteeing the "right" of a Delaware corporation to drag defendants into Delaware courts whenever they want to.

1: Paragraph 31 Remember that most Delaware lawyers want to be local counsel in corporate cases, and a lawyer who goes up against corporations will be blacklisted and never be hired to represent corporations. A plaintiff in a personal injury suit sues whoever did the injury, but in effect the suit is usually against an insurance company — in a car accident case, it's the auto insurance; in a medical malpractice case, its the doctor's professional insurance; in a product liability or slip-and-fall case, it's the casualty insurance; and in tender-offer cases, it's the directors' E&O insurance — so insurance companies pay the lawyers in many cases. The bottom line is that a person in Delaware who wants to file a personal injury suit can't usually find a good lawyer here to do it, because the lawyers don't want to go up against the insurance companies and run the risk of never being hired by those companies in the future.

1: Paragraph 32 The United States was founded on the idea of individuals' rights, but in Delaware corporations count for more than people do now. Take the top state officials: The governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately, so we can, and recently did, have a governor who was a Republican and a lieutenant who was a Democrat. The governor appoints the Secretary of State, who regulates corporations — entities that contribute lots of money to campaigns but can't vote and usually aren't in Delaware anyhow. If something happens to incapacitate the governor and lieutenant governor, the Secretary of State becomes governor; if something happens to him, the AG elected by the people becomes governor. That shows that Delaware puts the interests of corporations ahead of the interests of voting individuals. Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln must be spinning in their graves.

1: Paragraph 33 My civil procedure professor used to joke about the "lawyers' full-employment act," and nowhere does that concept command more respect than in Delaware. Non-Delaware lawyers working inside companies here usually don't bother to apply for admission to the Delaware bar, and swell its ranks, because the Bar Association and every other privilege extended to lawyers is equally open to lawyers working, but not admitted to practice, here. One reason there are never very many lawyers in the General Assembly is that there are not enough lawyer to spare — you can make a lot more money double-billing clients in Wilmington than driving down to Dover to sit in the legislature.

1: Paragraph 34 Ever since 'Marbury v. Madison' it's been accepted that the judiciary can overrule the executive, but in the federal system Congress can usually overrule the Supreme Court legislatively. But in Delaware if the legislature passes a law that disfavors lawyers or that lawyers disfavor, the AG invalidates it; so, contrary to the theory of tripartite government with checks and balances, we have a member of the executive exercising ultimate control over the legislature. Spin, Tom. Spin, Abe. Spin, spin, spin.

1: Paragraph 35 One novel aspect to the old-boy network in Delaware is that it's easier here for a woman to become a judge than a senior partner in a big law firm. Although there has not yet been a female justice on the Supreme Court, there are women on the benches of the other courts. With two notable exceptions, they are mostly women who had been with largish local firms long enough that the firms faced the prospect of making them senior partners, and that wouldn't do; so the senior partners used their influence to have the women appointed judges, because Delaware is a state where judges are appointed, not elected. The two exceptions are Vice Chancellor Carolyn Berger, whose husband Fred S. Silverman is AG Oberly's right-hand-man and actually runs the Dept. of Justice, and Judge Jane R. Roth, who is now on the bench of the Third Circuit federal appellate court but was until recently one of the federal District Court judges here and whose husband is Delaware's Republican in the U. S. Senate, William V. Roth Jr.

1: Paragraph 36 So the legal system in Delaware is like a medieval fiefdom. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and here that's the out-of-state corporations and their lawyers. The citizens are in the same predicament as the serfs when itinerant knights employed by absentee overlords rampaged across the land, destroying crops, herds, and sometimes the villeins themselves while fighting each other over esoteric points of honor nobody ever explained to the peasants because it had nothing to do with them anyhow.

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