[Note from Andrew: Please welcome Dan Silver, Co-Managing Partner of McCarter & English's Delaware office and all-around great attorney! Like magic, we mentioned him and he appeared. Nate and I are still tied up, but we hope to return to our regular posting schedule soon. In the meantime, thank you Dan!]
I have often considered starting my own blog to compete with ipde.com, but unfortunately, deip.com is taken, so I will have to avail myself of the occasional opportunity to write a guest post on ipde.com until I can secure the proper domain rights. Many thanks to Andrew and Nate for the opportunity.
In what has otherwise been a fairly quiet summer in Delaware, the District of Delaware posted two big announcements in quick succession this week. First, on Monday, the Court issued a press release announcing that Magistrate Judge Christopher J. Burke will not seek reappointment as a Magistrate Judge when his current term expires in August 2027. Judge Burke will have served two full eight-year terms at that point, and is currently the longest-serving Magistrate Judge on the Court.
Judge Burke’s contributions to the Court are too numerous to list in a short blog post (especially given the paltry word limit that Andrew and Nate gave me), but certainly one of His Honor’s most impactful endeavors is leading the District’s Federal Trial Practice Seminar. Unique to the District of Delaware, the FTPS is a multi-week seminar for up-and-coming Delaware attorneys with between 5 and 10 years of practice experience to hone their trial skills—from opening statements to closing arguments and everything in between. The Court recruits practitioners to serve as instructors and mentors, and the participants have the benefit of feedback from the District’s Judges and Magistrate Judges, in addition to the practitioners. It is an invaluable program that has surely benefited generations of lawyers under many years of Judge Burke’s leadership. Many of the Delaware lawyers you will encounter as a frequent flier in our Court will have participated in the Seminar (so bring your A-game if you are trying a case against one of them).
The press release from the Court announcing Judge Burke’s decision not to seek reappointment concludes with the following: “The Court intends to recognize Judge Burke’s exemplary service and thank him for that service in a more fulsome way at a public event in the near future.” So be on the lookout for more details for that event and I will see you there.
On the heels of that announcement, the Court dropped the second piece of news: revised Local Rules are going into effect on September 1, 2026. A copy of the new Local Rules can be found here. There is no substitute for reading the new Rules cover-to-cover, and I will not deprive you of the joy of doing so by giving away all of the spoilers, but two of my favorite changes can be found in L.R. 16.4 (the new version eliminates that pesky requirement that a request to extend the close of discovery or postpone trial be supported by either an affidavit from the client or “certification that counsel has sent a copy of the request to the client,” though keeping your client informed is always the right move), and L.R. 30.2 (which now specifies that in the event of a dispute concerning a deposition, the deposition “shall” not proceed until the dispute is resolved). Notably, the revised Local Rules are silent on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). For those regularly appearing in the District of Delaware, these changes will not seem earth-shattering, and I would agree with that assessment. That said, you would be well-advised to ask AI to summarize the changes, jettison the AI output, and read the new Local Rules yourself.
In closing, they say “change is the only constant.” I do not know who “they” are, but that seems right, especially this week if you practice in the District of Delaware. While Judge Burke undoubtedly leaves big shoes to fill, his decision also creates an opportunity for a deserving District of Delaware practitioner to step into the role of our newest Magistrate Judge, so more change (and excitement) is on the horizon.
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