These attorneys didn t root out corporate wrongdoing, or find a poor victim whose case no one else would take. They didn t discover toxic sludge in a landfill or figure out that a certain type of airbag doesn t deploy properly. Even if you think that lawsuits are useful to punish corporations or to represent consumers, the government suit against Microsoft is already serving these purposes. Now I guess he s an expert on software. Notice they re not claiming it s a higher standard, just a new one.
Lawyers are very careful with language.
Judging from recent history, settlements of the Microsoft cases would yield tens of millions of dollars to the plaintiff attorneys. If the company does decide to settle, someone will have to pay that bill. Ultimately, it will be the people who buy Microsoft products. After all, that s where Microsoft gets its money. Yeah, I know, Microsoft is a rich company, but every dollar paid to a lawyer is a dollar that can t be spent on something else.