Mark Hurd, HP's CEO, is scheduled to speak at the conference. HP is expecting some 7,000 attendees.

HP is facing a potential range of legal actions over an investigation of boardroom press leaks. In a filing earlier this week with the Security Exchange Commission, HP said it hired an outside firm which used pretexting -- a term used to describe people who pretend to be someone else -- to obtain telephone records. In this case, the telephone records of board members and some reporters were obtained.

HP's best move is "complete transparency -- admit that it was a business blunder, but it's essentially an internal business issue and do everything they can to discourage prosecutions from going out," said C. Hunter Wiggins, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP in Chicago.

HP will have to show that the board understands and recognizes that this conduct is disastrous and that is has taken steps to clean up its own house, Wiggins said.

Pretexting can bring legal trouble under a number of California laws, including its constitutionally protected right to privacy, as well as a state computer crime law that makes it illegal to unlawfully gain access to a person's computer, Wiggins said.