I suspect it might be dependent on whether someone is stronger visually or spatially vs textually.
I find ribbon interfaces highly irritating anywhere I find them, which is rarely - they haven't really caught on outside a couple of MS apps, AFAIK.
Attorney ancestors?
It's just a cutesy way of saying a long time ago when all the lawyers used Wordperfect. (A word processing program that I hated almost as much as Wordstar.)
They are still out there.
Last year we recruited an attorney from a firm that still uses WordPerfect for all their documents.
There are still law firms that require all their attorneys to use WordPerfect.
In some places, not so long ago :)
I imagine a lot of big law offices still have computers with WordPerfect on them so they can read old files if necessary.
WordPerfect is still maintained by Corel. The most recent release was in May.
They also maintain PaintShop Pro, WinDVD, and WinZip. I think they're running a retirement home for distinguished software products.
Corel is the Microfocus of client software!
The thing is I get why people hang on to COBOL or Attachmate. The company licensing WinZip is the puzzler to me! :)
Personally, I don't see the big ribbon issue. It's easy to search for arcane features in the help menu.
IMO, they really need a Mac where you get the top menu bar and a ribbon-like thing. Or some sort of gnarly keyboard mode that would become emacs for lawyers.