Is this the right view? I would imagine Elon Musk has essentially infinite demand for lawyers. The choice for the lawyers is probably work on this absolutely dead case where all the facts are not just against them, but highly embarrassing for their principal, or work on some other case where there would be perks like having the possibility of winning the case. I'm quite certain highly trained, highly successful, expensive lawyers aren't jumping up and down in excitement to work on cases they quite well know are meritless.

They'll do it, because that's what Elon Musk wants them to do and he's paying them and they want his other business, but this isn't what gets them up in the morning.