Head of Delaware’s Chancery Court Resigns

Chancellor Grover C. Brown, a Delaware judge who for a decade has handled major corporate law cases for the state known as America’s corporate capital, says he will resign March 30.

Brown, 49, had previously threatened to resign because of dissatisfaction with a heavy workload and a $53,000 annual salary that he said is too low for the job and far less than what most of the corporate lawyers who appear before him earn.

Delaware’s Chancery Court is a frequent battleground for major national firms that are based in other states but legally incorporated in Delaware.

Among the cases Brown has handled recently were Pennzoil’s failed bid to take over Getty Oil, which later was purchased by Texaco; the failed attempt by publisher Rupert Murdoch to take over Warner Communications Inc., and the state of Delaware’s efforts to name its own trustees to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit medical foundation that owns El Segundo-based Hughes Aircraft Co.

As chancellor of Delaware’s Chancery Court, Brown was also supervisor and assignment judge for the court’s three vice chancellors. He was a Family Court judge for two years in Dover before moving to Wilmington as a vice chancellor in May, 1973. He became chancellor in May, 1982.

In his resignation letter Monday to Delaware Gov. Michael N. Castle, Brown did not say what he intends to do after leaving the bench.

He reportedly has been offered a position with the New York corporate law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which has a Wilmington branch.