Hewlett-Packard announced on Thursday that the company's top lawyer had tendered her resignation, effective immediately.

The news that Ann Baskins, the general counsel for the technology giant, will step down comes as the Hewlett-Packard's CEO and former chairwoman prepare to testify to a Congressional subcommittee on their role in the investigation that led to the hacking of AT&T computers.

"Stepping down was a very hard decision for her, but by doing so she has put the interests of HP above her own and that is to be commended," CEO Mark Hurd said in the statement announcing the resignation.

The controversy continues to grow over the techniques used by third-party investigators hired by HP to obtain the personal phone records of the company's directors and nine reporters that may have received information about confidential board discussions. Investigators hired by the company's former chairwoman Patricia Dunn to find the leak employed pretexters to gain access to the records, but those investigators accessed the computers of AT&T to retrieve the records without authorization, an act that violates computer crime laws and is generally considered "hacking."

Baskins is the latest HP executive to lose their job amidst the scandal. The company had announced its chairwoman Patricia Dunn would relinquish her chair in January, but remain a director, and then reversed itself, announcing last Friday that Dunn would step down immediately. The person who originally leaked information to CNET reporters, Director George A. Keyworth II, also lost his position, though he originally refused to resign at a May board meeting.