In a Tuesday story, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that HP's chief counsel Larry Sonsini approved the "pretexting" hoax to swipe phone records, a blunder that has sparked SEC, Justice Department, Congressional and California state probes of HP.

Sonsini is also leading HP's deliberations on the HP board of directors, now two days old, about what action to take. Patricia Dunn, the chairman who started the probe, isn't attending the meetings. Also recusing himself: George Keyworth, the director linked to the leaks to reporters from the WSJ and News.com.

HP's hired investigators pretended to be the reporters to gather call records.

Today's WSJ's story quotes a dean of Yale's business management school as saying it's "extemely uncommon" to let an outside attorney lead a corporate board meeting. Frankly, Sonsini seems like the right choice to sort out this mess, considering he dubbed the hoax legal.