101 Lawyers: Attorney Appearances in Twitter v. Musk

In summer 2022, Twitter sued Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over his refusal to close his agreed-to $44 billion acquisition of the social-media company. Twitter v. Musk had the makings of corporate law’s trial of the century. Leading law firms represented Twitter, Musk, and third parties in a dispute with enormous financial, social, and political implications. In the lead up to trial, however, Musk relented and closed the deal.

The corporate trial of the century was a bust, over almost as soon as it began. But in the meantime, in Twitter’s eighty-six days of active litigation, an incredible 101 lawyers appeared in the case, as more worked on behalf of the parties without appearing. Thus, even without developing Delaware contract or M&A doctrine, Twitter was nevertheless a landmark case for the salient views it offered into corporate litigation and the legal profession. This Essay opens those views up with a hand-collected dataset of Twitter’s attorney appearances as a case study of legal staffing in high-stakes litigation and the role of state attorney regulation in multi-firm, multi-jurisdictional practice.