I've read your post, and all I can say is *DITTO*
What I would not give to get a copy of that leaked memo from the big law firm, so I could do a point by point rebuttal and blow their analysis out of the water! ;)
I'm dubious of the memo's conclusions, for a different reason than the obvious one, though I would not exclude the obvious one, either. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that Sullivan & Cromwell would actually lie to Microsoft; on the contrary. But, even assuming the memo is a good faith assessment and not leaked for PR purposes, let's just say I would expect them to put things in the best possible light.
Any client of a law firm, especially a large law firm, should know that the firm is not going to send out a review memo of the case they have just spent $ XXX,000 of the client's money defending that makes the firm look bad. They want to look *good,* so the client will feel confident and will continue to retain them on this case and in the future. Besides, there are plenty of opportunities to convey the bad aspects in more personal and private communications.
Maybe it's time for a little legal education. Perhaps *we* should go over the DOJ's complaint and give Microsoft the legal analysis its lawyers won't.
Basically, it would involve becoming educated about the legal theories being employed by the DOJ (by reading the complaint and trying to get an handle on how the trial might have expanded on it), and then applying the evidence in the case to show how those theories have been proven at trial. Since most of the testimony from both sides is available, it will be time-consuming, but it should not be all that difficult. The legal theories are pretty straightforward, although the case obviously presents some twists of a factual nature.
The one exception is the closed-session product pricing analysis, but I think we can pretty well speculate what that might show (labelling it appropriately as speculation, of course).
Needless to say, any conclusions would be the opinion of the poster only, but if they get the right people asking the right questions, the purpose will be served.
What do you say? |
