The Power of Simplicity with Silpa Maruri

Silpa Maruri has spent her career litigating monumentally high-profile, technically complex cases. Her wide-ranging corporate disputes work has made her a mainstay in the Delaware Court of Chancery, where she has spearheaded precedent-setting matters. She was the lead attorney representing stockholders in a class action against Dell Technologies, securing a historic $1B settlement – the largest stockholder settlement in Delaware Court of Chancery history and among the largest class action settlements of all time. She represented a private equity firm in a pioneering Covid-era busted deal case. She was on the team that represented Elon Musk in his headline-dominating $44B dispute with Twitter.

Yet, Maruri says, the key to her work is making those complicated cases simple.

Before she became a trial lawyer and founding partner of litigation boutique Elsberg Baker & Maruri, Maruri taught in Newark’s public schools. While she ultimately realized teaching wasn’t the career for her, she learned that advocacy was an important part of her identity. Her natural next step: a career in the law.

Later, she discovered something else: Being a lawyer, she says, is a lot like being a teacher. As a lawyer, “You take arcane subject matter, and distill it to its core components,” Maruri explains. “You make something that seems complex simple.”

It’s a tapestry of strategic puzzle-solving and empathetic storytelling that Maruri weaves masterfully. The Dell litigation was one that required extensive tactical planning along with co-counsel. The litigation, which included the deposition of Michael Dell, centered around a stock-for-stock exchange, eventually settling just weeks before trial was set to begin.

Maruri was a partner with Quinn Emanuel until this year, when she set out with partners David Elsberg and Rollo Baker to found their cutting-edge litigation boutique. The firm’s model emphasizes cooperation, with every lawyer, from associates to senior partners, working substantively on each case. It’s a style that Maruri says is beneficial for clients – who receive the talent of a Big Law firm with the advantages of a small team – and for associates who get experience right out of the gate. It’s reminiscent of Maruri’s early career, where she was able to gain trial experience quickly. Now, she is passionate about mentoring those young associates and providing an example for those who may see themselves represented in her.

LD: How did you begin focusing your work in Delaware?

SM: I wouldn't call myself exclusively a Delaware practitioner even now. I do a little bit of everything. I began working on Delaware matters organically. I worked on a case at Quinn Emanuel, and I loved how expert the Vice Chancellors were in handling corporate disputes. I liked not only the area of law, but also deeply respected the court. It ended up becoming a bigger part of my practice over time.

LD: What are some of the cases that stand out from those early years?

SM: One example that leaps to mind is a trademark dispute. As a very young lawyer, we had a client that had significant budget constraints. So, I had to do a lot of the day-to-day work on that case. I took all of the significant depositions and led strategy. So, even though I was a third- or fourth-year associate at that time, I was effectively functioning like a senior lawyer on that case.

LD: Wow.

SM: I really loved being able to shape every single component of the case. I loved setting strategy. I loved flexing my oral advocacy skills. The nice thing about being a lawyer is you don't do just one thing, right? I really love the variety in the work of a trial lawyer. All the different pieces are intellectually stimulating, and all of it forces you to grow every time you have a new case.

LD: As a young lawyer, did you have any mentors who really helped shape your career, and what did you learn from them?

SM: I took a little bit from every single person that I worked with, both good and bad. Every time I worked with somebody who was more senior than me, I honestly and sincerely studied exactly what they did and how they did it, and I took away a little piece of them and made it my own. That was particularly important for me because I wasn't always necessarily working with somebody who resembled me in every single way, but that was actually good because I learned how to take a piece of what somebody was doing that felt authentic to me and deploy it afterwards. It’s really important for young lawyers, as they think about their career trajectory, to make sure they're looking at every single time they work with anybody as an opportunity to pick up a new skill or add a new tool to their arsenal.

LD: Absolutely. Now that you're able to give that representation to younger lawyers in the way that you didn't see yourself resembled in senior leadership, what kind of advice are you providing them? Do you enjoy mentoring associates?

SM: Mentorship is one of the things I love about practicing. I think about it all the time. Whenever I'm doing something, I always try to take a step back and say to whichever associate I'm working with, "This is why I did this in this particular way. Here's the slight nuance that I added here that I think makes a difference." I always try to have that conversation with associates in real time. I also try to remind associates that there's a variety of different ways that you can practice. They don't have to model themselves on any one particular person or try to replicate somebody else's style. Their style has to be authentic to them, and as long as they're thinking strategically about how to approach litigation, they don't have to take a particular cookie-cutter approach.

It’s really important for young lawyers, as they think about their career trajectory, to make sure they're looking at every single time they work with anybody as an opportunity to pick up a new skill or add a new tool to their arsenal.

LD: While we’re talking about the firm, is a move to start a new firm something you predicted for your career?

SM: I enjoyed my time at Quinn. I got a lot out of it, and I had a lot of really superlative experiences there. It was natural, however, for me to come here because it was a new platform, it was the right opportunity, and it came up at the right time. I'm glad I took it because today, I'm one of a small group of female name-partners in a trial litigation boutique. I'm so grateful to be able to have that experience, and I'm so grateful that is visible to associates as a possibility because there were fewer examples of that when I started to practice, and for women of color in particular. It's such an amazing time in the law.

LD: Absolutely. Then, taking a look at some of the major cases in your career, can you tell me about Dell?

SM: It was incredible to be a part of that litigation. It was precedent-setting both in terms of the size of the settlement and from a jurisprudential standpoint because it applied a legal standard that's been refined over the past 10 years, regarding the standard of review applicable to controller-interested transactions. So, it's a case that's going to be probably cited over and over again in Delaware. It was an interesting case to litigate.

LD: When you first joined the case, did you expect a result of that size?

SM: We saw the bones of a really powerful plaintiff-side case. So, I think it was always in our minds that we could achieve a historic result. But when you think about it, it was the first time that a settlement of the size ever happened in Delaware. But when we started, we didn’t say, "Well, are we really going to dwarf all of the other settlements and make history with this case?" You don't go into a litigation thinking you're going to make history, right? So, in that respect, I don't know that we necessarily knew that was going to happen.

LD: How did you feel afterward?

SM: It was one of the most rewarding wins of my career. I think part of that was just delivering what felt like the right result to the shareholders. It also just frankly felt really good to have so many of our legal theories, particularly around the damages analysis, vindicated through the results.

LD: Then, looking at another major case – Twitter v. Musk. What was it like working on a matter that had so much media attention?

SM: It was quite a unique experience. I've had a fair number of cases where the litigants are famous, the story is interesting and there's media attention. But I don't think anything I've ever done will compare to the amount of media scrutiny that was going on in the Twitter v. Musk litigation. That was just a combination of how prominent Musk is and how interested the media was in the story of his acquisition of Twitter. It was interesting to see how media focused on certain aspects of the case.

LD: That’s interesting – tell me more about that.

SM: There were so many high-profile people involved in the case, not just as parties, but also as third parties. There was a lot of public interest in that aspect of the case.

LD: Are there any other cases that really stand out in your mind that maybe they weren't as newsworthy, but stand out to you personally?

SM: One stands out, probably because it was so recent. I just first-chaired an arbitration in Los Angeles involving a minority shareholder and whether or not he could be terminated from his position at a company. The unique thing about that case was it was an expedited arbitration, so we had to get ready for the entire trial within seven days of the arbitrator being appointed.

LD: Wow.

SM: It was fun. There was no discovery, so we had to rely very heavily on skill and combine that with what we did have to marshal. There were no depositions. It was just a matter of leveraging the things that we did have to try the case on a very short timeline. And that's what the firm does. We're doing a lot of cases where we're trying disputes on a shorter timeline than we normally have because they're expedited for one reason or another.

I really love the variety in the work of a trial lawyer. All the different pieces are intellectually stimulating, and all of it forces you to grow every time you have a new case.

LD: On that note, what's keeping you busy on a day-to-day basis lately?

SM: That trial dominated a lot of my time recently, given how quickly we had to get ready for that. And that's a lot of what I love. I love not just litigating, but trials in particular. I love the drama of trial, the cross, the direct, the building of the story. The nice thing about our firm is that we have the type of seasoned lawyers that you get from a traditional law firm, but we also are lean and agile, and we bring a very creative and passionate angle and a lot of energy to the picture. So, all of the partners on the case were neck-deep in strategy and making sure our storytelling was exactly on point, which is something we thrive at. Every single one of us is a lawyer's lawyer.

LD: How would you describe your personal style as a lawyer?

SM: I think I am creative and aggressive, but I'm also cerebral in how I approach things. I really dig in. I learn every component of the case backwards and forwards, and then I deploy that knowledge in a way that yields the best results for the client.

LD: Finally, what do you do for fun outside of your practice?

SM: I spend most of my spare time with my son, who is 17 months old.

LD: This has been a very exciting couple of years for you.

SM: Every day is better than the last.