From Hewlett-Packard to UnitedHealth and beyond, have America's lawyers failed its corporations? Where were the lawyers while the Silicon Valley crowd mortgaged its future for a few lousy stock options? And what about HP: with legions of attorneys paid six-figure salaries, was it really so hard to avoid breaking the law?

The answer to such questions may seem obvious now: with the hyper-clear vision of hindsight, it seems obvious that all that spying and date-changing was a bad idea. Does that mean the lawyers should have forecast - not to mention prevented - the disaster? That is less clear.