Page 20 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2022

FEATURE
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David J. Margules
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The growth of Delaware offices of out-of-state firms
It is often observed that Delaware’s state and federal courts are nationally renowned for adjudicating entity governance, bankruptcy and intellectual property disputes. Over the past 40 years, that reputation and other factors resulted in massive growth of out-of-state law firms with Delaware offices.
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The first was Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which opened a Wilmington corporate litigation of- fice in 1979 with respected Chancery practitioners Rodman Ward, Jr. and Steven Rothschild. Today, Skadden has more than 60 Delaware lawyers, with practice groups specializing in litiga- tion, transactional work, bankruptcy and restructuring.
“I counted offices of out-of-state firms a few years ago, and there were over 70,” said Richard Levine, former Administrative Partner of Delaware’s Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, “al- though many have only one lawyer.”
Several factors drove the expansion:
principally the regionalization of Phila- delphia firms, the desire of national corporate practices to onboard Chancery expertise, and a push to participate in Delaware’s bankruptcy and intellectual property markets.
Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Philadelphia firms sought geo- graphic diversity to reduce reliance on an overcrowded legal services market. “It was part of a general growth imperative,” recalled Levine. He considered the moti- vation to have been largely “defensive.” Delaware’s major firms, such as Young Conaway, had “the same coverage as the larger Philadelphia firms” in terms of subject matter expertise, but “tended