The Delaware Option

As you’re weighing where you’d might like to start your legal career, consider the following cases:  Revlon v. McAndrews & Forbes Holdings, The L.A. Doctor’s Bankruptcy, Roy E. Disney v. The Walt Disney Company, Nokia Corporation v. Apple Incorporated. 

If you’re interested in corporate litigation, mergers and acquisitions and other commercial transactions, bankruptcy and restructuring or intellectual property law, these are the types of deals or cases you’d probably like to be working on.  

What you may not know is that all of these transactions and cases and thousands more like them are governed by Delaware law and adjudicated in Delaware where the majority of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated. 

Even though the cases are just as big as in New York or California, and the deals just as high stakes, the Delaware firms are a lot smaller.  In Delaware, you can work in a firm of 90 instead of hundreds or even thousands like you’d find in larger cities. 

This has several advantages.  In Delaware, you have a much faster career track.  You’re likely to find yourself working directly with partners and clients almost immediately.  You may even see your name on a brief in your first year. 

With a one-to-one partner to associate ratio, you’re being developed right out of the gate as a collaborator and, since cases in Delaware are so often on the cutting edge of the law, you’ll be given responsibility immediately. 

Having so much variation case to case is challenging but it’s also rewarding. 

What about Delaware as a place to live or raise a family?  You have a wide range of living options.  If you like big city life, Philadelphia is a short commute, or you could live on a farm in the country or anywhere in between.  You could afford a palace in Delaware for the price of a shoebox in Manhattan.  Wilmington is also just a short drive or train ride from both New York and Washington, and Southern Delaware’s beaches are a very popular summer destination. 

High profile, interesting cases, attorneys at the very top of the profession, and legendary courts with experienced judges – all in one small accessible place.  We hope you’ll consider Delaware and Morris Nichols as the place to build a rich and satisfying legal career.