Case Management Order

A Case Management Order (CMO) is any of the sequential orders a transferee judge issues under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16 to govern the procedural conduct of an MDL, addressing matters such as pleading deadlines, discovery protocols, expert disclosure schedules, fact sheet and census requirements, bellwether selection procedures, and Daubert briefing schedules. Unlike a single governing document, CMOs in a large MDL accumulate over the docket's life — often numbering in the dozens — with each addressing a discrete procedural question as it arises, sometimes amending or superseding prior orders. Because MDL consolidation centralizes pretrial management before a single judge with broad case management discretion, CMOs collectively function as the operative rulebook for the entire docket, and a transferee judge's approach to them — aggressive versus deliberate, prescriptive versus flexible — signals the pace and rigor with which the litigation will proceed. Counsel on both sides negotiate proposed CMO language extensively, since procedural terms embedded in an early CMO, such as the scope of permissible discovery or the standard for fact sheet compliance, can materially shape downstream litigation and settlement leverage long before any merits ruling is made.

The CMO sequence is the most reliable public record of how quickly and rigorously an MDL will move, making it a primary underwriting input for timeline and duration risk. Funders track CMO issuance rates and content across a docket to calibrate capital deployment schedules and reserve assumptions, since a court issuing detailed, fast-paced CMOs on discovery and bellwether selection signals a shorter path to a valuation event than one leaving major procedural questions unresolved.

Milestone-based funding tranches are frequently keyed to specific CMO-defined events, such as close of core discovery or entry of a Daubert briefing schedule.