The unusual number of lawyering cases on the Supreme Court’s docket is continuing to get noticed. As American University Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Vladeck observed in a recent National Law Journal Article: “At the beginning of every term, there is an effort to try to paint the term with one brush. The brush that seems most apt at this point is: This is a term about lawyering.”
Today, the Supreme Court opens the term with Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter. The case questions the timing for an appeal of a court’s order compelling the production of documents after finding that attorney-client privilege has been waived: may the order be appealed immediately, or must the parties wait until after the final judgment? The case has drawn a great deal of attention from the business community, with the ABA and the Solicitor General weighing in on opposite sides. (The ABA, along with a coalition of businesses, supports Mohawk Industries in arguing for immediate appeal.) A group of former Article III judges and law professors also filed an amicus brief raising concerns about the burdens associated with the increased number of appeals likely to occur should Mohawk Industries succeed. (Professor Vladeck authored the brief.)
For those of you keeping count, the Court granted certiorari to the seventh lawyering case last week, Astrue v. Ratliff. Astrue challenges the Eighth Circuit's determination that fees awarded to a "prevailing party" under the Equal Access to Justice Act belong to the attorney, not the client.