If momentum counts for anything in U.S. Supreme Court decision-making, civil litigators and corporate counsel are in for a major victory sometime this month.

The high court is poised, as soon as June 19, to hand down a ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California, probably the most important of three cases before the court this term dealing with the important issue of jurisdiction: where corporations can be sued, and the extent to which plaintiffs can forum-shop.

For litigators, “this case is huge,” said Hugh Young Jr. of the Product Liability Advisory Council, whose membership includes 94 manufacturing companies nationwide. “It's not a sleeper case, it's a big damned deal.”