Carol Lam - Career

Career

Lam began her legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable Irving R. Kaufman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1985 to 1986.

From 1986 to 1997, she served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of California and was Chief of the Major Frauds Section from 1997 to 2000. Lam convicted several high-ranking members of the Chicago organized crime family La Cosa Nostra; obtained a guilty plea and a civil settlement of $110 million from National Health Laboratories, Inc. in a Medicare fraud case; and briefed and argued the first appellate case upholding the constitutionality of "roving" wiretaps.

She then served as a judge of the Superior Court in San Diego, presiding over a criminal trial calendar.

In 2002, Lam was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California by George W. Bush. In 2007, Lam was asked to resign by the Bush Administration. Subsequent to the dismissal, the Administration claimed that Lam did not allocate sufficient resources to prosecuting border crimes, echoing US Representative Darrell Issa's (R-CA) complaints.

On February 26, 2007, Lam joined Qualcomm as Senior Vice President and Legal Counsel for the Company’s Legal Team. On August 13, 2007, Lam took the role of acting general counsel at Qualcomm while "a nationwide executive search" was begun for a permanent replacement for Lou Lupin, who resigned as general counsel just after the finding by Hon. Rudi M. Brewster, United States Senior District Court Judge, that Qualcomm and its counsel engaged in egregious legal misconduct. While the inception of Qualcomm and its counsel's misconduct predated the hiring of Ms. Lam, there has been no public statement as to whether her hiring was predicated on the emergence of the scandal.

In November 2008, Lam was named as Deputy General Counsel for Qualcomm.