Larry Sonsini calls in 'Mad Dog' for best defence

One company's mess is a meal ticket for its instructed lawyers, and so it is with Hewlett-Packard (HP), the once golden paradigm of corporate America now in trouble for the way it went about sniffing out boardroom leaks.

Its general counsel and main outside lawyer, among others, both testified at a special hearing on Thursday (28 September) as part of ongoing efforts by the House Energy & Commerce Committee to examine whether or not 'pretexting' (pretending to be someone else to obtain their phone records) is illegal.

Legendary tech lawyer Larry Sonsini, who HP retained as its preferred external counsel, instructed the white-collar specialist Michael Madigan. The Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner, whose moniker is 'Mad Dog', represented the 'Bush