Carried forward, in a court-like environment, or throwing salvos over PR mediums?
I take it as a bad smell someone goes the PR route over a lawyer (perhaps a confidential legal threat?) to discuss things privately and settle thing amicably.
Depends on what the aim is. There are some considerations here:
1. People tend to view going for the lawyers as going for the 'big guns,' and can be reluctant to do so.
2. Companies can become less cooperative very quickly once it's a matter being decided by lawyers and/or in a court.
3. She may not have consulted a lawyer because she doesn't think that anything which transpired qualifies as 'illegal,' rather than unprofessional, rude, mean, etc.
From the story presented to us, it sounds like she wants to leverage bad PR to get Github's HR / board to hold the people she views as having wronged her accountable.
After reading the article I assumed that she didn't go to a lawyer because she believed there was nothing there that would merit a lawsuit. The fact that she didn't mention what her initial grievance was, leads me to believe it wasn't such a big deal as to rise to the level of a lawsuit.
Or possibly she just believes that going public like this is the best way to bring about change.