You'll have to check with resident Atty. Lampton, Bearded One. My reading was that Bill was acting as his own lawyer all along. As to strategy, I'd say there's a good chance they're playing to the appeals court, as Gerald has said in the past. The "Chicago School" argument doesn't seem to be prominent in the current strategy, but I'm sure it'll come up later.
Given how the appeals court seemed to bend over backward to pat Bill on the back the first round, there's a good chance Microsoft will do fine there, though there's still this matter of "finding facts", which I don't believe can be overturned on appeal. I'd guess, though, that the 2 Reaganauts on the Appeals Panel may be out ahead of the Supreme Court in their willingness to throw out antitrust law. I'm sure Rehnquist, Scalia, and Scalia's lap dog Thomas would be happy to go along, but that's not enough. The rest of the court seems a little more reticent about overturning existing law on a whim.
And who knows, maybe Randolph will look up what his old mentor Bork has to say on the current matter. All I'll say about Microsoft's strategy is that Intel's makes more sense to me. Let the lawyers handle it, most people wouldn't know it was going on in the first place. Bill seems to think he must be free to intimidate the DoJ too. "You can have me for 8 hours, not a minute more. You want to depose 15 guys? I'll give you 8.". I figure Bois will probably come in for Bill's deposition. I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that one. "Random isn't a legal term, Mr. Gates. The law doesn't recognize 'beyond bizzarre' as a legal defense."
Cheers, Dan. |
