PENNIES FOR PLAINTIFFS, MILLIONS FOR LAWYERS. “Concern over this issue has begun to expand beyond grousing libertarians, with courts and legislators moving to restrain some of the worst excesses. So this story is not entirely surprising: The judge presiding over a Hewlett-Packard shareholder suit has balked at the $48 million in fees negotiated by attorneys in a settlement. The amount of money that shareholders were going to get was not negligible, unlike some of the consumer suits where the victims get a coupon good for more product from the company they’ve accused of doing them wrong. But the judge seems to think that it’s disproportionally small compared with what the lawyers were getting.”