Qualcomm Inc. announced today the resignation of General Counsel Lou Lupin. Lupin had been known for his aggressive “take no prisoners” approach. Carol Lam, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, was named his interim successor. Analysts are thinking that in pushing Lupin out the door, the company may be signaling that it intends to adopt a new legal strategy after a series of rulings that ran against the company.

The most recent setback was a very embarrassing federal judge ruling last week that Qualcomm had knowingly failed to turn over thousands of relevant documents in a patent trial against Broadcom. Judge Rudi Brewster said that Qualcomm knowingly concealed the documents and ordered that the company pay all of Broadcom’s legal expenses as result. Lupin had written an apology letter to the judge back in April after Qualcomm’s outside counsel discovered documents the company hadn’t previously produced that revealed facts “inconsistent with certain arguments that we made on Qualcomm’s behalf.”

Commentary: Perhaps most interesting is how the stock price reacted… it went up by nearly 3%. With 1.67 billion Qualcomm shares outstanding, that translates into a $1.72 billion gain for investors. Maybe they should fire more people as it seems to be working! Not sure how sustainable that business model would be though.