Apple Loses Top Corporate Lawyer

Charles Charnas, Apple's lead corporate lawyer, left the company in early January. His departure was marked by a short email to Apple's law firms simply stating that January 4th was his last day on the job, according to Law.com.

Mr. Charnas came to Apple in April 2008 from HP as the new boss in the corporate department. He joined Apple after the company went through the legal headaches associated with its stock options backdating incident and was part of the team tasked with rebuilding Apple's corporate legal department.

Mr. Charnas's boss, Daniel Cooperman, left the company last year and was replaced by D. Bruce Sewell in September 2009.

There's no word on why Mr. Charnas left Apple, or what he plans to do next.