If you are strong enough to look inside the mind of a class-action lawyer, think back to December 2004, when Edward D. Jones & Co. agreed to pay a $75 million fine to avoid federal criminal charges for taking payments from mutual fund companies.

"Edward Jones has done something wrong? Let's sue A.G. Edwards!" So thought the class-action lawyers.

Perhaps the final act in that lawsuit played out Monday morning in the courtroom of St. Louis Circuit Judge Angela Turner Quigless.

Oddly enough, I admired one of the lawyers.

But I am getting ahead of myself. You are probably wondering why an allegation of wrongdoing against Jones would lead to a lawsuit against Edwards.

Let me explain. The case against Jones was murky. The payments from the mutual fund companies were not illegal. In fact, news accounts at the time said they were common, and were called revenue sharing. But the feds decided that Jones had not disclosed to its customers that brokers were getting extra money for steering clients into certain funds.

The feds did not make that allegation against A.G. Edwards, but the class-action lawyers figured that if this so-called revenue sharing was common, A.G. Edwards must be doing it, and so the lawyers went ahead and filed their lawsuit in April 2005 contending that Edwards was guilty of whatever it was that Jones had done.

As is typical in these cases, the defendant company denied all wrongdoing but eventually decided it was cheaper to pay off the lawyers than to wage a long legal battle. So A.G. Edwards rolled over, and the class-action lawyers negotiated a settlement in which their "clients" would get coupons while they themselves would get cash — and bundles of it.

Actually, some of the "clients" are indeed eligible to receive cash. Anybody who had an account with A.G. Edwards between April 2000 and April 2005 but no longer has an account is eligible to receive $20.42.

People who still have accounts with the firm, now Wells Fargo, will be eligible to receive three coupons worth $8.22 each. One coupon can be used each year to offset fees.

Meanwhile, the lawyers will get $21 million and expenses.

Quigless presided at a hearing last month to determine whether the settlement was fair and reasonable.

Ted Frank, a lawyer from Washington, showed up to object to the settlement.

Objections to settlements have become quite common. The growth of class-action lawsuits has led to the emergence of a subspecies of lawyers called professional objectors. They do to class-action lawyers what the class-action lawyers do to businesses. They huff and puff and threaten to hold things up until the class-action lawyers agree to pay them off. When you think of professional objectors, think of parasites who live on leeches.

But Frank seems to be acting on principle. He is a conservative activist and an advocate for tort reform. Last year, he founded the Center for Class Action Fairness. He travels around the country objecting to settlements in which the clients get coupons while the lawyers get cash. He points out that class-action lawyers try to justify their huge fees by pretending to have negotiated millions of dollars worth of coupons for their clients while the truth is, very few people bother to use their coupons.

Quigless ruled against him in May. She declared that the settlement was fair and reasonable. On Monday, Frank was back in her courtroom appealing that decision.

Three local firms are involved in the case. They are Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch; Husch Blackwell Sanders; and Holloran, White, Schwartz & Gaertner. The other nine firms are from out of town.

In case you're wondering whether Edward Jones escaped a class-action lawsuit, don't worry. That company was sued, too. A settlement was reached in which former customers were eligible to receive a cash payment of $17.99 and current customers received three coupons that could be redeemed one per year. Total value was $19.86. The lawyers got $27 million.

Many of the same law firms involved in the case against A.G. Edwards were involved in that one.

In his filings in the A.G. Edwards case, Frank wanted to know how many coupons were redeemed in the Jones case. He received no response.

I thought Frank's arguments Monday were persuasive. Then again, I have always preferred cash to coupons.