Don’t blame Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, her new lawyer said Wednesday, for the convulsions the company’s board have suffered in the wake of its troubled investigation of boardroom leaks.

“She’s neither a lawyer nor is she an investigator,” said James Brosnahan, the Morrison & Foerster litigator whom Dunn hired this week. “And she’s not the kind of person, frankly, who would advise people to do something illegal.”