I have always found the NFL methodology a bit weird when it comes to testing and how they deal with positive tests.
I think it makes a LOT of sense for a player to have a good lawyer look over the agreement between the NFLPA and the NFL, make sure that they understand what defenses are allowed and what are not for PED, and also be able to advocate strongly for the player at the hearing.
This is my opinion regardless if the PED is legit, or not -- it's always seemed odd to me that the players gave the league power to test the players and if a positive test occurs that the appeal process is deliberately biased against the player... it's kind of like having the NFL be judge, jury and executioner.
If this encourages the NFL and NFLPA to bring the testing regime up to snuff for modern days, and get a bit more transparency, that would be a great side effect.
I do think that Sherman is trying to get this pushed off until next year, and hiring a lawyer could very very easily accomplish that. The lawyer shows up at the December 14th hearing, says they were just hired December 10th, need to review all the appropriate materials, all the rules and agreements, and want to see all the evidence against the client... the league probably takes a few weeks to get that to the lawyer, the lawyer says they need a few weeks to review it, and he'll get back to them... it's just that easy, getting an eight week delay would be trivial. Frankly at the end of all that, if the deck is just stacked against Sherman, the lawyer could even contact the NFL, say "yeah, this is ridiculous, my client is not guilty but according to the rules, there's no way we can win an appeal, so we're done, suspend him" and it wouldn't even seem all that odd, especially if the lawyer went to the public and the NFLPA and said that the whole situation was a misunderstanding but the NFL rules don't allow any reasonable grounds for appeal.
I suspect something like that will play out. Just a hunch.