This homily for Judge Andrew G.T. Moore was delivered by The Rev. Calhoun W. Wick was delivered on Dec. 19, 2018 at Trinity Parish. You can read Judge Moore’s obituary from the News Journal here.
We gather together this morning to celebrate the life of Drew Moore. How did you know him? Did you know him as husband, father, grandfather, or uncle? Did you know as a colleague in the law which he loved so much? Or did you know him as a friend?
How shall we recall and celebrate Drew’s life? Unlike so many of you here today who have spent a life-time in the legal profession, my legal career is very short. It is limited to being Juror #5 in a trial held in Superior Court. In my experience being Juror #5, I learned something very important because the trial ended up having major consequence for state of Delaware. Here is why. We ended up with a hung jury when we should not have. A major reason we ended up with a hung jury is that prosecutor’s summation of the evidence was lacking. He did not bring forward the evidence that he had at hand in a compelling way. So today, for this homily I want to build a compelling case about Drew with each of you here this morning.
Imagine that we are not here at Trinity Church, but downtown in Superior Court. You now are in seat #5 in the front row of the Jury box. The evidence I want to present should convince you, if you are not already convinced, that Drew Moore was a good man who experienced a life well lived.
Picture the court room. I rise from the table and move to the lectern before you who are seated in the jury box. I begin my address.
Members of the Jury, in the case of Andrew G. T. Moore, known as Drew there are four points I want to build upon as to why he should be known as a good man who experienced a life well lived. The points are family, a winsome sense of humor, a teacher, and his legacy.
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 joy of this relationship the time Ann and I met them in Paris when Drew was teaching at the Sorbonne, in the many conversations we had with Drew and Betsy when we had dinner with them on Red Oak road or watching them cook together just after they had returned from taking a course at the Culinary Institute of America. I saw the depth of this relationship on the afternoon Drew and Betsy left for Australia after Cecile’s accident and upon their return when we did her service in this very church where you now sit. The statistics say many marriages do not survive such a tragedy. Drew and Betsy went to the bottom of the well of grief where few of us have ever gone and their love for each other carried them through.
Drew Moore: A good man, a life well lived.
In Drew’s family, there was great joy as well. Drew loved his daughter Marianne, his grandchildren, and son-in-law with whom he practiced law. Boy they had fun together.
Marianne remembers this about playing games together with her dad.
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 while it wasn’t always fun being on the losing end, 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.
And Drew’s nephews David and Jeff echo the happy times of fishing, hunting, shared vacations, and the adventures of playing a game called “gotcha last” that they shared with Drew.
Drew Moore: A good man, a life well lived.
We now move to humor.
Despite the middle initials in his full name of Andrew G. T. Moore which some experienced as “Get Tough”, Drew had the gift of humor and winsomeness possessed by few men.
We need to look no further than his run for elective office as Attorney General of the State of Delaware to see this infectious light touch in action as remembered by Roger Brown in what has become known as the Great Cake Caper. Roger remembered it this way.
We had a full day of campaign stops to make in Sussex County. Our first visit was, I believe, to Seaford ““ although it could very well have been Laurel ““ where we learned for the first time that we were supposed to bring a home-made cake or pie to the Sussex Democratic Ladies bake sale that was being held that morning. Apparently, a bakery item from a candidate brought in more dough (pun intended) than the average item for sale.
So what to do? Hightail it over to Woolworths where we bought the cheesiest and cheapest dinner plate we could find. Then to the nearby grocery store where we bought a Pepperidge farm frozen cake. Either vanilla or coconut, I’m not sure but it was definitely a white cake. Then after purchasing a roll of Saran Wrap, we wiped the price tag off the Woolworth’s plate, plopped the cake thereon, and wrapped it in saran Wrap. But, of course, it didn’t look home-made, so we smacked it around a bit to give it the homemade look. Lopsided and dented. It was a warm September day so the outside went to normal temperature, but we were hoping that no one would buy it and try to eat it immediately before the inside thawed.
Alas, we don’t know what happened to it. But now you know. The secret is out. Election fraud in Sussex County. Just hope the statute of limitations has passed.
Michael Goldman provides evidence that this humor was carried directly into Drew’s practice of the law with the Legend of the Moore Brothers
The legend of the Moore brothers began when Drew, Hank Gallagher and I were working on the Resorts International Casino case. We met in NYC with New York counsel to discuss the case. Late that night the three of us checked into a hotel near their office. A sleepy bellhop took our bags and brought us our room keys. He said to Drew “Mr. Moore here is your key” and then to me “Mr. Moore this is your key” and finally to Hank “and Mr. Moore this is yours.” Drew of course started laughing, as we all did. He announced, “We are now the Moore brothers.” From then on he would say to us Mr. Moore this and Mr. Moore that. We did the same to each other.
Our adventures began the next week working at the Resorts hotel in Atlantic City. Drew would gleefully announce “The Moore brothers are here to render legal services to you.” The client, a jovial chairman of the company enjoyed this. Each night after work we retired to the Nightclub. We were asked at first to perform as a new singing group. Lucky for the audience we did not. The lawyers were given money to gamble. One of our New York colleagues, a straight-laced guy, came to us and said he lost the money and was cheated. The Moore brothers had to tell him that a) the company gave him the money and b) they, the company, Resorts International, would keep giving him more so he could lose again and indeed all night. “Oh” he said.
Drew Moore: A good man, a life well lived.
We now turn to the evidence of Drew as a teacher. We begin with his impact on one student.
In the Spring of 1985 Drew selected Arthur Dent to be his clerk.
Arthur writes of this experience:
By then Drew had already served as a Justice on the Delaware Supreme Court for three years and was well on his way toward establishing himself as the most influential member of that bench. Needless to say, I was more than a little awed by Drew and his accomplishments when he interviewed me for the position. I needn’t have been nervous; he quickly put me at ease when he demonstrated a sincere interest in my personal history and career goals.
During my all-too-brief clerkship, Drew went out of his way to make sure I realized how truly unique and wonderful the practice of law in Delaware could be. He took great pleasure in seeing his clerks succeed, and I sensed that he was even more pleased when his clerks who, like me, were not Delaware natives, chose to stay and practice in Delaware.
One day during my clerkship Drew stopped by my office and asked if I was a registered voter and, if so, what my party affiliation was. I knew Drew was a “Southern Democrat” who had run for office as Delaware Attorney General as a Democrat, so I somewhat sheepishly confessed that I was a registered Republican. Drew said nothing more, and at the time I wasn’t sure what that was all about, but a day or two later Drew returned to my office to tell me that he had an errand to run and that he would like me to accompany him. Within five minutes I found myself with Drew in the office of former Delaware Governor Pete duPont, who had appointed Drew to the bench and by 1985 was practicing law with the firm of Richards, Layton & Finger. Unbeknownst to me, Drew had called Governor duPont and arranged for me to meet him. I was overwhelmed that Drew would do something so special for me.
We next turn to Drew’s impact of teaching a decade worth of students. With Clark Furlow, Drew team-taught an annual class in advanced practice at Stetson University in St. Petersberg, Florida from 2005 to 2015. It was a six-week course on Delaware Corporation Law.
Listen to how Clark describes it.
We conducted the class as an informal, three-way conversation between ourselves and the students. We adopted roles appropriate to the cases under discussion. For example, Drew would play the role of an investment banker, and I would play the role of a corporate raider. We would ask the students how they would use his financial services to structure defenses to defeat my takeover ploys.
The course was a huge success. Every year the course was oversubscribed. We always had a long waiting list of students who hoped to get in.
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!
The Stetson College of Law required the students to fill out evaluations of our class. Here are some examples of what they had to say:
* “This just might be my favorite class of all time.”
* “This class was an amazing experience! It was a great honor and privilege to be taught by Justice Moore.”
* “So much insight into the corporate world!! It was amazing to hear about these cases from people that were there and the person who wrote many of them.”
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. Consequently, it can safely be said that every law student who took a corporation law course has studied some of Drew’s work. In 2008, Jonathan Macey, a Yale law professor, published a book called “The Iconic Cases in Corporate Law.” The book discussed what he and a number of other corporate lawprofessors 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 last week.
If you will allow me, one last final observation, among too many I know. For more than 40 years now, I have had the opportunity to litigate corporate cases in Delaware, for much of that time at a rate perhaps more frequent than most. 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 the midst of a then ““ embryonic legal landscape that had never before been seen, let alone judicially addressed, yet they continue to define the central framework for judicial analysis of fiduciary conduct even now, some three decades later that is a conspicuously large professional legacy. 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.
So with that, my summation to you the jury ends. I turn from the podium and again take my place at the table in front of the courtroom.
In my role as a lawyer that is as far as I can go.
But today we are not in a court room, but here in Trinity church. As a member of the clergy, I do not have to leave the story of Drew there for I can call upon another piece of compelling testimony from nearly 2000 years ago.
The events I will share with you now happened on Easter day, but began at a time when the disciples of Jesus are in the deepest of grief and cannot fathom that Jesus’s resurrection has occurred.
This is the famous story of two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus in the 24th Chapter of Luke’s Gospel.
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
19 “What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
It is because of their experience on that first Easter day and the experiences of many others at the time of that first Easter that the Rev. Patricia Downing will say this prayer as a Preface to our service of Holy Communion.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who rose victorious from the dead, and comforts us with the blessed hope of ever lasting life. For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.
For this we say, “Thanks be to God!”
Amen.
