Not a cheap trick
There is no cheap trick involved in this manner of processing. In fact any good lawyer would do this as this keeps all your options open; and, as most of us here are from the software field, we should be able to understand this. I have no connection with this company and have not even heard of this company until I saw postings fly by on this board and the I140 board previously. The negative tone of most of these messages does, however, lead me to believe that this company may not be among the best in the world to work for!
My lawyer also suggested to me that I should do my I140 for CP though I was sure I would be doing an AOS. She was willing to file an I140 for AOS if that was what IO expressly wished for, but she gave me the following reasons for not doing so.
If you decide to change your mind after the 140 is approved, If you mentioned CP on the 140, all you need to do is file the I485, just as you would have done if you had mentioned AOS on your 140.
If you decide to do CP after the 140 is approved, you have to file another application(an I-8xx i do not recall the exact number may be 824) which can take about 6-9 months to process. Also, the INS does not require anything from the Package sent to the NVC for the 485 process(hence the ease of filing for 485 after approval for CP!). The only cases where this does result in a delay is when (inexperienced, perhaps) INS officers look to incorrectly retrieve some document from the package sent to NVC.
So don\'t worry