Meta’s legal group, which over the years has helped Facebook and its various subsidiaries deal with a range of legal and regulatory issues, has been busy recruiting new talent in recent months.
Data collected by Bloomberg Law and cross-referenced with LinkedIn profiles and state bar registries shows Meta and its affiliates have hired at least 70 attorneys in the past year. The sum is probably higher, but it is also offset by other personnel changes.
An online job board for Meta includes listings of over 100 in-house attorney positions. Shortly after Meta adopted its new name last year, a similar analysis of legal job listings showed more than 115 open positions, according to a report by trade publication Corporate Counsel.
The securities filing by Meta disclosing Sandberg’s resignation is signed by Assistant General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Katherine Kelly. She joins the company after more than 16 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., where she helped the pharmaceutical giant navigate its $74 billion acquisition of Celgene Corp.
Kelly oversees Meta’s broader group of companies, Johnson said. She did not respond to a request for comment on her new role.
Jennifer Newstead, hired by Facebook as general counsel in 2019, assumed the title of general counsel in October, according to archived internet records of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company’s executive leadership page.
Meta did not list Newstead as one of its five highest-paid executives in 2021, according to a proxy statement filed for that year. Securities filings show it has sold more than $5 million of Meta stock since the start of 2021. Newstead still holds shares in the company valued at more than $3.7 million, according to Bloomberg data. .
Newstead replaced former Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch, who resigned three years ago after being appointed in 2013. Stretch took over from the company’s former chief legal officer, the former Kirkland & Ellis partner , Theodore Ullyot.
Ullyot was chosen in 2008 to succeed another former Facebook general counsel, Rudy Gadre. Facebook’s first-ever general counsel and chief privacy officer, Christopher Kelly, is now co-owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.
Ullyot and David Kling—a former assistant general counsel and corporate secretary who was replaced by Kelly—were also listed on Facebook’s IPO prospectus. Ullyot left the social media giant a year after its IPO.
Kling, a former partner at startup-focused Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, joined Facebook in early 2009, making him one of the company’s longest-serving attorneys. He left in November and is now on sabbatical, according to his LinkedIn profile. He could not be reached for comment.
