Meet Facebook's New Top Lawyer

Even without Winklevii to fend off, with PRISM panic and FISA fights, it's still been a hell of a time to be legal counsel at Facebook. Now it's a new guy's problem.

Facebook's outbound general counsel, Ted Ullyot, will depart after negotiating the partial disclosure the social network's cooperation with the government, effective July 5th. His replacement is Colin Stretch, who'd worked alongside Ullyot during pivotal moments in the annals of Facebook law: beating back the Winklevoss twins, working through privacy violation settlements, and as AllThingsD points out, helping negotiate the billion dollar Instagram buy.

Before joining Facebook, Stretch had clerked with the Supreme Court after graduating from Harvard Law, so yeah, he's smart alright. His prior experience in privacy battles will surely come in handy, assuming people don't abruptly stop worrying about the NSA as they have with every previous Facebook privacy worry.

Stretch pictured on the right, Ullyot middle, and Leaner-in-Chief on the left