Page 21 - Delaware Lawyer - Summer 2023

From left to right: Maame Boateng of Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP, Alexandra Manolakos of the Delaware Department of Justice, Charles Park of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor
business court — the Court of Chan- cery — existed in Delaware. While the Court of Chancery’s preeminence as a business court is beyond question, that court’s jurisdiction typically is limited to cases that include an equitable hook.1 This means that, prior to the CCLD’s emergence, business litigation in Dela- ware that fell outside of the Court of Chancery’s jurisdiction had to be filed on the Superior Court’s general civil docket, which numbers in the thou- sands of cases annually.2
Faced with the question of how Delaware, the legal home of more than 300,000 new business entities each year, along with more than 68% of the Fortune 500,3 might best serve its busi-
nesses litigating purely legal disputes, the Superior Court’s then-President Judge James T. Vaughn, Jr. appointed a “Committee on Superior Court Busi- ness/Complex Litigation” (the “Com- mittee”). The result of the Commit- tee’s work was a comprehensive report recommending the CCLD’s creation.4 That recommendation was based on a thorough review of the emergence of specialized business courts around the country, as well as an examination of the demand for a second business court in Delaware and the Superior Court’s demonstrated ability to meet that de- mand.5
One challenge the Court faced when deciding whether to create a specialized
business court division was how to inte- grate that division with the Court’s oth- er important work. The Superior Court is Delaware’s felony criminal trial court and its work in that regard is, obviously, of vital importance to the state. The Court is also the state’s lone civil trial court of general jurisdiction and, again, its work in that capacity is central to its function. Ultimately, the Court deter- mined that the judges assigned to the CCLD would continue to carry a full criminal caseload and would continue to preside over civil cases not assigned to the CCLD. No Court resources were diverted from the Court’s criminal or civil docket to support the CCLD; all of the judges and staff assigned to the CCLD do that work in addition to the work they otherwise perform for the Court.
As it has now evolved, the CCLD complements the Court of Chancery by providing a Chancery-like environ- ment, within the Superior Court’s exist- ing structure, for the litigation of com- plex commercial cases with over $1 mil- lion in dispute and without an equitable overlay. It also provides the option of a jury trial, which does not exist in the Court of Chancery.6 Despite its relative youth (just 13 years old, compared to the Court of Chancery’s 231 years), the CCLD has developed into another pre- mier Delaware court for adjudicating high-stakes commercial disputes.
Experienced and Dedicated Personnel
Among the many reasons for the CCLD’s success to date, one is obvi- ous: its judges and staff. As with most business courts in the United States, a defining feature of the CCLD is its reliance on a designated set of judges, one of whom is assigned to each case and remains the presiding judicial of- ficer from that case’s inception to its conclusion. This structure enables each judge to become deeply familiar with the claims, parties, and counsel in each
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