If you can’t beat them in the courtroom, buy them.

More than even “Sprint, together with Nextel,” that has been the motto of the nation’s No. 3 wireless company since it purchased Nextel Communications in 2005.

Now expectations are growing that Sprint soon will do the same with iPCS, an Illinois company that has been keeping Sprint’s legal teams scrambling in courtrooms from Delaware to Cook County, Illinois.

Sprint’s relationship with its smaller, affiliate carriers that sold Sprint-branded service in exclusive territories always has tended to be a bit rocky. It grew even worse after Sprint bought Nextel, creating what many of the affiliates saw as Sprint-owned competitors in the markets that they were supposed to control.

Sprint spent billions of dollars rolling up companies such as Alamosa and Ubiquitel. Nothing says, “Quit your whining” – legally speaking, of course – quite like we own you so drop the lawsuit already.

iPCS, with its 654,000 subscribers, is the largest remaining Sprint affiliate carrier.

So far, iPCS lawyers are on quite the hot streak, one that at least raises the potential of burning Sprint. They have won a court ruling that essentially orders Sprint to dump its Nextel network in a gigantic swath of the Midwest. Sprint has been battling to overturn the ruling, but so far has failed to do so.

iPCS also is raising a fuss about Sprint’s pending deal to spin off its WiMax unit and merge it with Clearwire. It wouldn’t be good news for Sprint if that deal get scuttled or even delayed substantially.

After Sprint said last week that it would keep and rejuvenate its Nextel network, Jonathan Schildkraut of Jefferies & Co., said he thinks it now is a 50-50 shot that Sprint will snap up iPCS.

“Because the IL Court has ruled that Sprint must disconnect the iDEN network in IPCS's territories, we view an announced commitment to the network as a signal that a take-out is more likely than previously,” Schildkraut wrote in a report to investors.

Sprint still could strike a new deal with iPCS, or even shut down its Nextel network in iPCS territory.

But on last Friday, investors sure seemed to be buying into the possibility of a Sprint purchase of iPCS.

iPCS shares jumped more than 20 percent on Friday.