Status hearing in U.S. v. National Association of Realtors

I attended a status hearing this morning in U.S. v. National Association of Realtors. Judge Filip was primarily concerned with establishing certain deadlines ahead of the bench trial in this case, which could come in the first half of 2008. While there wasn’t anything of substance raised by the attorneys, some interesting statistics came out.

The DOJ attorney noted that the government had served 108 subpoenas in this matter, and taken 20 depositions. It was not clear whether any of these occurred during the DOJ’s pre-filing investigation. He also noted that NAR had served six subpoenas and taken one deposition. Of course each party is free to ask a deponent questions during a deposition – these figures simply refer to the number of subpoenas/depositions commenced by each party.

In support of his request for adequate time to respond to the government’s expert witness report, NAR’s attorney reminded the court that thirty-six (36) markets were at issue, the government had recently submitted a one hundred (100) page, single-spaced expert witness report, and that fifty depositions remained to be taken. The court granted NAR until August 1, 2007 to respond to the government’s report.

The next status hearing before Judge Filip will be on July 16, 2007.