I’ve been feeling a bit guilty since July, when I speculated that the Delaware Chancery Court might only devote 15% of its docket to corporate law issues. Better versed Delawareans than I wrote in that the number seemed to them more like 60-70%. And that’s why we love the internet. But still, I have to think about my honor. While the majority number must be the right one in all the important ways (maybe those are the cases up in Wilmington, that get a lot of court time, and so on), I’ll note that – according to a footnote in a paper recently consumed hereabouts (it’s not out yet, or I’d name authors) - in 2002, the Chancery Court disposed of 3,525 cases, 2,183 of which involved estates, 440 guardianships, 38 “other matters” and 52 trusts. That leaves 902 cases that might be assumed to be corporate. Which is, I’ll have you know, 26% of the cases.
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1. Posted by J.W. Verret on October 31, 2007 @ 10:22 | Permalink
Good point, however, if you were to weight those cases for time and complexity I believe you would get closer to the 60% number I mentioned.
2. Posted by Bruce Boyden on October 31, 2007 @ 14:06 | Permalink
That's a lot of estates! I would guess those are mostly routine probates.
3. Posted by David Zaring on October 31, 2007 @ 14:09 | Permalink
I'm totally confident that JW, Bruce, and Bainbridge are right. If you consider time spent, you'll get a very different breakdown. But it's the principle of the thing, you see......
4. Posted by Lawrence Cunningham on October 31, 2007 @ 22:18 | Permalink
Instead of measuring specialization using observable data like dockets that David supplies or conjectures about unobservable time allocation that others suggest, is it better to estimate specialization according to the observed quality of the resulting output?
No doubt people disagree about the quality of Delaware corporate law opinions. But there is little doubt that a non-trivial portion of the opinions should not qualify as the products of an expert court that specialization in the subject should produce.
In contrast, consider the New York Court of Appeals, among the most experienced and respected in contract and commercial law. Its output regularly shows the expertise that usually comes from specialization, even though its judges handle a docket broader and more complex than Delaware’s.
5. Posted by Francis Pileggi on November 1, 2007 @ 21:38 | Permalink
I posted the citation to an article with statistics relevant to this post at the following link:
http://www.delawarelitigation.com/2007/11/articles/commentary/is-delaware-chancery-court-a-specialized-court/
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