Andrew G.T. Moore II passed away peacefully on December 10, 2018, at the age of 83. In 1982, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware by Governor Pierre S. duPont IV. As a member of the Court from 1982-1994, Justice Moore wrote many of the landmark decisions in the field of corporate governance. This is an edited version of the homily The Rev. Calhoun W. Wick delivered on Dec. 19, 2018 in Drew’s honor. This is the version that ran in the Feb. 5 issue; you can read the eulogy in its entirety here.
We gather together this morning to celebrate the life of Drew Moore.
Let us begin with family as that was at the center of Drew’s life. Drew’s 53-year marriage to Betsy was the cornerstone and capstone of everything else. I saw the joy of this relationship the time Ann and I met them in Paris when Drew was teaching at the Sorbonne, in the many conversations when we had dinner with them. or watching them cook together just after they returned from taking a course at the Culinary Institute of America.
(His daughter) Marianne remembers this about playing games together.
My dad had a huge competitive streak when it came to board games and card games. His knowledge of game strategy was extensive, and he relished beating his opponents whether they were adults or children. He excelled at Trivial Pursuit, Hearts, and Monopoly to name a few. While Trivial Pursuit combined game play with his sharp recall of facts, well-known and obscure, Hearts and Monopoly satisfied his desire to out-strategize and crush his opponents. He took such joy in winning and each loss was a learning experience. After every loss he would share his strategies with me so that I could be a better player the next time. I still love to play board games and win, often using lessons and strategies I learned from my dad as a girl.
Drew Moore: A good man, a life well lived.
Drew team-taught a [six-week course on Delaware Corporation Law with Clark Furlow at Stetson University from 2005 to 2015.
Listen to how Clark describes it.
Drew did not just talk about corporate law. He also explained to the students that it is of upmost importance for a lawyer to maintain his or her integrity ““ especially in the face of the enormous financial or professional pressure a lawyer involved in a big case can face. He gave examples of some who had failed and others who had succeeded. He taught the students that character and integrity would be their most important assets in their efforts to build successful legal careers.
Each year, at the end of the course, something very unusual would happen. The students would ask Drew to autograph their casebooks. That doesn’t happen to law professors. But Drew was a corporate celebrity in their eyes!
But Drew’s impact went beyond this one class at one university for a decade. Clark Furlow goes on to say,
Every corporation law casebook used in every law school in the United States contains at least one case written by Drew. In 2008, Jonathan Macey, a Yale law professor, published a book called “The Iconic Cases in Corporate Law.” The book discussed what he and other corporate law professors with whom he collaborated considered the 14 most important corporate law cases decided in the 20th Century. Drew was the author of four. No other judge (including some very famous ones) wrote more than one.
Drew Moore: A good man, a life well lived.
And finally we turn to Drew’s legacy. This comes from Donald Wolfe at the end of a personal letter he wrote to Betsy.
For more than 40 years now, I have had the opportunity to litigate corporate cases in Delaware. In that time, I have appeared before and studied the opinions of dozens of Delaware judges, collectively regarded by many as the most skilled in the country. In my estimation none is exceeded, indeed only a very few have even approached, the degree of persisting influence and impact on our corporate common law than that which Drew exerted. The most prominent of the decisions he authored or fashioned were issued in a then embryonic legal landscape that had never before been seen, yet they continue to define the central framework for judicial analysis of fiduciary conduct even now. But no less memorable than his equally large heart, or that infectious guffaw that I will not soon forget.
Drew Moore: A good man, a life well lived.
Link to NJ obituary: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/delawareonline/obituary.aspx?n=andrew-gt-moore&pid=190975351&fhid=7881
