At various points during the financial crisis and subsequent fallout, we have wondered if legal obligations would make it harder for certain CEOs to concentrate on doing their jobs.

When the personal legal obligations of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein stepped up after a Senate panel forwarded a damning report to the Justice Department last year, we wondered at what point the board would believe Blankfein’s personal legal obligations would inevitably detract from performance. When former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis became embroiled in legal controversy over the Merrill Lynch deal and related issues, the obvious distractions played a role in  the decision that he should step down. Now, the WSJ has raised a similar issue regarding current Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, an executive on the hot seat if there ever was one.

Moynihan is expected to be deposed soon in up to three civil lawsuits that deal with the bank's purchase of Merrill Lynch and how it handled various disclosure issues subsequently. These represent the first depositions since Moynihan became CEO, and they will occupy a large chunk of time. Depositions can run long, and almost all require arduous preparation, as the stakes are high.

The bank’s lawyers have not “argued that Mr. Moynihan should be exempt from discussing the Merrill situation under oath, but it has asked that the testimony be limited to one day per deposition and that all questions stick to issues relevant to the litigation.”

Shareholder activists, should they decide to call for Moynihan to step down, will likely make this an issue. If the stock continues to rise, however, and the bank’s financial improve, we likely will not hear much more about this.

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