Author ORCID Identifier

0009-0003-8399-0096

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

Keywords

Elon Musk, Twitter, Delaware Court of Chancery, Legal staffing, Attorney demographics

Abstract

In summer 2022, Twitter sued Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over his refusal to close his agreed-to $44 billion acquisition of the social-media company. Twitter v. Musk had the makings of corporate law’s trial of the century. Leading law firms represented Twitter, Musk, and third parties in a dispute with enormous financial, social, and political implications. In the lead up to trial, however, Musk relented and closed the deal. The corporate trial of the century was a bust, over almost as soon as it began.

But in the meantime, in Twitter’s eighty-six days of active litigation, an incredible 101 lawyers appeared in the case, as more worked on behalf of the parties without appearing. Thus, even without developing Delaware contract or M&A doctrine, Twitter was nevertheless a landmark case for the salient views it offered into corporate litigation and the legal profession. This Essay opens those views up with a handcollected dataset of Twitter’s attorney appearances as a case study of legal staffing in high-stakes litigation and the role of state attorney regulation in multi-firm, multi-jurisdictional practice.

First Page

77

Publication Title

Duke Law Journal Online

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