Amid SEC charges that Apple management had shifted the dates of stock options to benefit executives, including Jobs, Anderson, and former general counsel Nancy Heinen, the company took an $84 million charge in 2006. Jobs and Apple settled a shareholder lawsuit for $14 million, but avoided trouble with the SEC. Anderson and Heinen paid $3.5 million and $2.2 million in fines respectively, without admitting guilt.

The episode caused a major rift between Anderson and Jobs. Anderson had left Apple in 2004, but stayed on the board until the scandal led to his resignation in 2006. In the meantime, Anderson had joined Elevation Partners, a private-equity firm in Silicon Valley. As the stock-options scandal grew, Anderson and Jobs pointed fingers at each other, at one point issuing dueling press releases shifting the blame. Anderson has long maintained that Jobs knew more about the options chicanery than he has let on.

Elevation, which also counts famed Valley investor Roger McNamee and U2 frontman Bono as partners, backed Palm, a rival to Apple in the smartphone business, and recruited a former top Apple executive, Jon Rubinstein, as Palm's executive chairman. No one in Silicon Valley honestly believes this is a coincidence.

Forbes is another Elevation investment. The May 11 story, written by Bill Barrett and teased on the cover, centers on the 118-page transcript of a three-hour interview Jobs gave SEC examiners trying a case against former Apple general counsel Nancy Heinen, which the magazine obtained at some difficulty through a Freedom of Information Act. In the interview with SEC examiners, Jobs complained that the board was not looking out for him and he had to ask for a generous stock-options package, but maintained that he was largely unaware of the backdating and ignorant of the accounting consequences. (Backdating is not illegal by itself, but requires notice to shareholders and a charge to earnings, neither of which Apple undertook at the time it backdated options.)

Excellent journalistic work on Barrett's part. But here's the question: How did Forbes know precisely which document to ask for? It always helps to have well-connected sources. And it's hard to imagine who would be better placed to know the details of the case than Anderson.

Above the Law notes that Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has skipped the annual tradition of awarding associates who passed the bar exam a bottle of champagne. At $40 a bottle for 53 associates, $2,120 is hardly a big expense. But it is a powerful symbolic move: The bubbly times are gone for good.

Wilson Sonsini is no mere bill-by-the-hour outfit; the firm and its founders have been key players in establishing Silicon Valley's equity culture, where employees are motivated by stock options that pay off when a company goes public or gets sold. And who handled many of those IPOs and M&A deals? Wilson Sonsini, of course. Larry Sonsini, the firm's best-known founder, has been a consigliere to Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, among others.

This decade has not been good for Wilson Sonsini. The firm has found itself dragged into every major scandal that drew national attention to the clubby world of the Valley, from HP's illegal pretexting of reporters' phone records to the backdating of stock options in many tech firms. Wilson Sonsini paid $9.5 million to one tech company to avoid involvement in litigation — but there are other backdating lawsuits out there. Observers of the legal profession are waiting to see if one ends up dragging the Valley's most arrogant lawyers into court.

Even if Wilson Sonsini escapes legal trouble, it can't dodge the recession. A cold IPO market has already hobbled its business; with public offerings completely frozen, and acquisitions happening for a fraction of the price they commanded even a few years ago, it's hard to see how the firm will make the kind of money it did in the '90s.

Wilson Sonsini helped build the Valley's sense of itself as a world apart — and its own firm as an even more rarefied sphere within that bubble. No wonder they and their clients ended up testing the law's gray areas in the pursuit of . That's why trimming this year's champagne budget isn't a mere cutting of perks: It's a sign that a gang of lawyers who saw themselves as above the rest have floated down to earth. The descent is only beginning.

The defendants knew that options were not granted on the dates that were disclosed to shareholders and falsified the company's records to create the appearance of illegality, and thus bear direct responsibility for their actions.

A previous suit was dismissed because the actions by Apple directors and executives in 2000 and 2001 were too old for courts to consider. We're not sure yet what's so different about this case, except that it's well-timed for bad publicity ahead of the iPhone 3G launch.(Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)

Samueli, pictured above in his role as owner of NHL's Anaheim Ducks, denied any wrongdoing in a statement. Nicholas could not be reached as he is reportedly now at the posh Betty Ford clinic undergoing rehabilitation for substance abuse. The suit also names former CFO William Ruehle and current general counsel David Dull, seeking a return to shareholders of "ill-gotten gains" and to bar all four principals from serving in any public company. (Photo by AP/Lawrence Jackson)

Here's what's odd: Pixar is now owned by Disney, which cleared everyone "currently associated" with the company of wrongdoing. That includes Steve Jobs, Pixar's former CEO, now a Disney board member, but leaves Mather out in the cold. So far out that Disney itself hasn't disclosed her legal jeopardy to its own shareholders — the people whose Mather's Pixar backdating most affected.

That adds KLA to the list of companies kicking out officers over backdating, including Apple, CNet, and the latest company, chip maker Altera, whose CFO retired Monday. There are a few non-tech companies, but so far this is mostly a Silicon Valley problem.

The Journal lists (in a free article) companies that NASDAQ could de-list, including Apple (agreed to be only a minor threat due to its prestige and ability to recover).

KLA Chairman Steps Down [TheStreet.com]
List of company officials ensnared in stock options furor [AP]
Big Names on the 'D' List [WSJ, free]