I recently spent a day with some high-profile lawyers at a big New York firm. It was a few days before Ann Baskins, the general counsel of HP, was to testify before a congressional subcommittee. I asked the lawyers whether they thought Baskins would survive the boardroom spying scandal. All six agreed that her career was over. A few days later Baskins “resigned.”
One of the lawyers had an interesting take on why she wouldn’t survive the scandal, even if she did nothing wrong. He basically said that GCs are expendable during corporate scandals.
