U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel has said he wanted a trial by the middle of this year in a federal class-action lawsuit against Donald Trump by students of Trump University who say they were defrauded. That was before the real estate mogul appeared headed for the Republican presidential nomination.

The judge is expected to address timing at a final pretrial conference Friday in San Diego. Trump’s lawyers, who have put the candidate on a list of witnesses who they may testify, have signaled opposition to a trial while Trump is in the race.

“This will be a zoo if it were to go to trial,” Trump lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said at a hearing in March.

The case is one of three lawsuits that accuse Trump University of fleecing students with unfilled promises to teach secrets of success in real estate at seminars that cost up to $35,000.

The San Diego lawsuit says Trump University, which no longer operates and wasn’t accredited as a school, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring students to buy more, and in the end, failing to deliver.

Trump has repeatedly pointed to a 98 percent satisfaction rate on internal surveys. But the lawsuit says students were asked to rate the product when they believed they still had more instruction to come and were reluctant to openly criticize their teachers on surveys that were not anonymous.

Curiel has been eager to get the case to six-year-old case to trial, suggesting August at a hearing late last year. He appeared to have second thoughts by March as Trump surged in the primaries.

Jason Forge, an attorney for the plaintiffs, suggested at the March hearing that a trial be scheduled in June but appeared open to another date.

“I would be foolish to even pretend to know how a case like this should be handled at this point because it really is an unprecedented level of publicity,” Forge said.