Wilmington boutique Abrams & Bayliss has staked a firm claim in the community, placing itself on equal footing with the more historically established shops. In fact, some actually consider the firm to be in an advantageous position to overtake those firms. “There is a generation of lawyers in Delaware that are 20 years senior to those at Abrams & Bayliss that for the past 20 years have dominated Delaware. Well, those people are ready to retire! That puts a firm like Abrams & Bayliss, who has a consistently strong bench of people in their 40s and 50s, ready to take over from those other firms who had one major star and no one else because they didn’t groom the younger partners.” The firm is also said to be “very selective with its associates.” A peer offers in summation, “Abrams & Bayliss is terrific, incredibly plugged into the Delaware space. They don’t do as much in the federal space but in Delaware they are second to none.”
Name partner Tom Bayliss has emerged as one of Delaware’s leading lights, universally championed by peers and clients alike. “Tom Bayliss is one of the best lawyers in the state, everybody loves him,” attests one Wilmington contemporary, who goes on to address Bayliss as “the roof!” Another elaborates on Bayliss’ acumen “particularly in the appraisal space, which people are saying is going to be an increasingly important, with all the new law. Just a few short years ago, I would have been saying this about someone at one of the much bigger firms in [Wilmington.]” A client concurs with the peer praise. “Tom is an excellent writer and speaker, and he really listens to clients, both their ideas and their needs. [He has] Inexhaustible energy – he's like the Energizer bunny and seemingly always has a way to make time for what matters. [He is also] Totally connected – he seems he at the center of everything.” Bayliss led a team acting for Shari Redstone and National Amusements as Delaware co-counsel advising on Delaware law aspects of the three-way transaction between NAI, Paramount Global and Skydance Media, including responses to the multi-billion-dollar topping bid proposed by Edgar Bronfman. The deal has since become the target of multiple books-and-records cases and multiple suits alleging breaches of fiduciary duty by Redstone, National Amusements and others. Bayliss and team also acted as Delaware co-counsel for Fox in high-profile derivative litigation, which seeks to hold members of the Murdoch family and other directors and officers of Fox liable for promoting factually unfounded political narratives, including ones that allegedly led Fox to defame Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic USA in connection with the 2020 US presidential election.
