"When a lay person looks at this, it appears to be a case that involves tremendous waste," and there is additional resonance given California's recent budget woes, Krigsman said.

Marin County "is trying to win in the court of public opinion and hoping that will influence the legal outcome or force a settlement," he said. "As a consulting company, it is not in Deloitte's interest to be dragged through the legal mud publicly."

"At the same time Deloitte would be on very dangerous ground to accept culpability in this case," Krigsman added. "The definition of project failure is not clear and would open the door to other [alleged] victims of IT failures against Deloitte. Deloitte is looking to settle this in the most quiet way possible."

Krigsman uses the phrase "Devil's Triangle" to describe the dynamics of software projects, a metaphor meant to underscore the crucial role vendors, systems integrators and customers must play well in order for implementations to work.

In this case, county officials seemed to lack experience with complex software projects, he said. In addition, "the software seemed to be more than their organization could easily absorb."