I have written previously here about the vacancy on the Delaware Chancery Court due to Vice Chancellor Lamb entering private practice  as a result of the expiration of his term last month and his intent not to seek a second term.

 The procedure in Delaware for choosing his successor provides for the Judicial Nominating Commission to interview candidates and then send a list of three names to the Governor, who usually picks one person from that list, after which the Senate would need to convene in order to confirm the selection. The Senate does not return for its regular session until January, so a special session will need to be convened. The Governor is not required to select from the list sent to him, though not doing so is exceedingly rare.

Sources tell me that the following seven people have submitted their applications to the Commission. The hyperlink below for each is to their bio page on their firm’s website, except that Richard Kiger consented to have me link the relevant parts of his application to the Commission.

Richard Forsten
Joel Friedlander
Judge Mary Johnston
Richard Kiger
Theodore "Ted" Kittila
Travis Laster
Bruce Silverstein

 My goal is to keep this blog "neutral" when it comes to providing information on the candidates for the courts that this blog covers. Professor J. Robert Brown observed recently on his blog (which is consistently critical of Delaware corporate law and the Delaware Courts), however, that the Court of Chancery seems to have a history of homogenous composition.

The Commission is expected to send their short list to the Governor very soon and the Governor is expected to make his selection by next week. In the meantime, the busy Court of Chancery is  handling their caseload with only 4 jurists out of their full 5-member bench.

UPDATE: Prof. Gordon Smith (an alumnus of Skadden’s Delaware office) gives his views here.  Also,  the DealLawyers.com blog offers its commentary here.