Francis G.X. Pileggi

Biography

Francis Pileggi is the managing partner of the Wilmington office of Lewis Brisbois and is chair of the Directors & Officers Litigation Practice and a member of the Complex Business & Commercial Litigation Practice. His litigation practice emphasizes representation in high-stakes disputes of corporations, stockholders, members of boards of directors, members and managers of LLCs, and those with managerial or ownership interests in other forms of entities. He has extensive experience in matters involving fiduciary duties and corporate governance as well as summary proceedings under the Delaware General Corporation Law in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Francis has also been certified as a mediator.

He has been asked to testify as an expert witness on Delaware Corporate Law and Delaware LLC Law.

One of his law review articles on corporate law has been cited by both the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery. The Delaware Superior Court also cited one of his articles. He has published over 1,000 articles in multiple publications on topics including corporate and commercial law as well as legal ethics and constitutional law. He also often speaks at seminars on those topics.

Francis created and maintains the Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog at www.delawarelitigation.com, which was named one of LexisNexis’ Top 25 Business Law Blogs and was selected for inclusion in the ABA Journal’s Blog 100 in 2011 and 2012. In turn, he has been described as “a brand name in Delaware corporate litigation.”

He also has enjoyed success in litigating, in both federal and state appellate courts, groundbreaking Second Amendment cases and related constitutional issues on behalf of civil rights organizations. In 2015 and 2019, he was honored with The Chief Justice William Killen Award for Distinguished Second Amendment Appellate Advocacy.

Francis published a book entitled, American Legal Ethics: A Retrospective from 1997 to 2018 (Outskirts Press, 2018), available on Amazon.com.

Francis has represented townships in Delaware County and Chester County, Pennsylvania, as special counsel on litigation matters. He has also represented a school district in Delaware County and educational and nonprofit institutions in Pennsylvania and elsewhere on corporate governance, litigation, and related issues. He has represented governmental entities and private parties in connection with the Pennsylvania Right to Know Law, and he is the coeditor of a blog that provides commentary and insights on that law.

William L. Witham

Biography

The Honorable William L. Witham Jr. became an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of Delaware on February 18, 1999; he was appointed Kent County Resident Judge on January 19, 2005.

He received his B.A. from the University of Delaware in 1970, and his J.D. from the University of Maryland in 1973. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1975 and the Delaware Bar in 1976. Resident Judge Witham graduated from the United States Army War College in 1998. Prior to joining the Superior Court, Judge Witham was a partner with Prickett, Jones, Elliott & Kristol in Dover, Delaware. He also served as the Kent County Levy Court Attorney in 1999.

Judge Witham oversaw the implementation of the State of Delaware's Veterans Court, and since its inception in 2011, he has been the Veterans Court Judge.

During his career, Resident Judge Witham has served on the Criminal Justice Council of the Judiciary, as a member of the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, as a member of the Board of Bar Examiners, the United States Third Circuit Merit Selection Screening Committee, the Governor's Magistrate Screening Committee, as a trustee of Delaware Technical and Community College, as president of the Central Delaware Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Inc., as a director of the Board of Managers of the Central Delaware YMCA, and as president of the Dover Kiwanis Club. He served as president of the Kent County Bar Association and as the vice-president of the Delaware State Bar Association. He is also a retired Delaware Army National Guard Colonel.

Resident Judge Witham is currently a member of the Delaware State and American Bar Associations, Terry-Carey Inn of Court, and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. He also is an adjunct professor at Wilmington University.

Resident Judge Witham retired on May 14th, 2021 (original term ended in March 2029). Judge Withham will be assisting Superior Court with Veteran Court related matters.

David Yamane

Biography

David Yamane is a professor of sociology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He earned his BA (’91) in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and his MS (’94) and PhD (’98) in sociology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. After teaching at the University of Notre Dame and holding a post-doc at the University of Virginia’s Center on Religion and Democracy, he joined the faculty at Wake Forest in 2005.

For the first 20 years of his academic career, Professor Yamane specialized in the sociology of religion, a field in which he authored, co-authored, or edited 6 books and 2 major scholarly journals.

Since 2011, Professor Yamane has become an internationally recognized scholarly authority on guns and a calming voice in our divisive national argument on the issue. An Asian American and lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, Yamane became a first-time gun owner as a 42-year-old and began a 12-year journey into the complex world of firearms in America. Having one foot outside and one inside gun culture allows him to speak with compassion across our paralyzing differences. Yamane’s timely and original book, Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture, will be published by Exposit Books in June 2024.

Other recent publications include “Gun Culture 2.0: Evolution and Contours of Defensive Gun Ownership in America,” “Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture and Violence,” and Concealed Carry Revolution: Liberalizing the Right to Bear Arms in America.

Committed to informing public debate and enriching everyday conversations about guns, Professor Yamane shares his thoughts on his blog, gunculture2point0.com and on Twitter at @davidyamane. In 2022, he launched a YouTube channel, “Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane,” on which he posts weekly short videos about issues related to his scholarship.

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Delaware Firearms Law Seminar