1980s - Leadership Role in Crafting and Securing Passage of Delaware's Director Protection Legislation and Its Anti-Takeover Statute.

The 1980s were a period of frenetic activity in the Delaware corporate bar as each of the bench, bar, and legislature reacted to an unprecedented onslaught of innovative merger and takeover activity. Together, they combined to shape a new body of law to address the proper role of directors and the corporations they served with respect to such activity. Morris Nichols lawyers had a leadership role in crafting and securing passage of Delaware's director protection legislation (8 Del. C. § 102 (b)(7)) and its anti-takeover statute (8 Del. C. § 203). By the end of the 1980s, the level and intensity of the corporate practice at Morris Nichols was radically transformed, as a new generation of lawyers stepped forward to build upon the foundations laid in the roaring eighties.