I.

Practice of the Firm

Litigation

Trial and dispute resolution where the outcome is existential — commercial, fiduciary, and high-exposure defense.

The approach.

The litigation practice is the firm's founding discipline: commercial disputes, fiduciary and shareholder claims, and high-exposure defense where the outcome would change the client's future. Matters are led by the partner who will stand up in court, from the first conflicts check to the verdict.

Preparation is the practice's only doctrine. Every matter is built to be tried — witnesses worked, record perfected, theory reduced to a sentence a juror can carry — which is why most of them end, on the firm's terms, before trial.

Representative Matters

2019 — Whitmore v. Continental Indus. — $310M verdict for a family's minority stake; affirmed.

2016 — Confidential fiduciary defense — Claims against a trustee bank withdrawn after expert discovery.

1978 — Marden Steel v. Atlantic Casualty — $46M coverage recovery, then Delaware's largest.

A selection. Most of the practice’s engagements remain, by design, confidential.

The Practice Is Led By

Eleanor R. Vance · Marcus D. Hale

If the matter is serious, so are we.

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PRECEDENT

Attorneys & Counsellors at Law · Est. 1948

Offices

New York

748 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10065

Wilmington

1201 N. Market Street

Wilmington, DE 19801

Washington

1601 K Street NW

Washington, DC 20006

Attorneys of the firm are admitted in New York, Delaware, and the District of Columbia, and before the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits and the Supreme Court of the United States.

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Material on this site is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice; neither receipt nor review of it creates an attorney–client relationship.

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New York · Wilmington · Washington

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