Hello, Inside Track readers! Welcome to the Thanksgiving Eve edition of your favorite newsletter on all things in-house counsel! I'm Law.com reporter Dan Clark and I want to start by thanking all of you for reading this newsletter. What are you thankful for in your legal department this holiday season? Let me know!

Before we jump into the news, I'd like to ask anyone who has advice they'd like to share with the in-house community to contact me. I'm starting an advice feature called “Inside Knowledge” and I'd like it to be an exchange of ideas. I'm interested in substantive legal advice but also tips for structuring a legal department, managing outside counsel, employing data and cutting costs.

As always, I can be reached at [email protected] or you can find me on Twitter @DanclarkALM.

What's Happening-

Facebook's GC Status? It's Complicated

In July, Facebook's top lawyer announced that he would be leaving at the end of December. However, on Monday, Law.com reporter Caroline Spiezio reported that Colin Stretch plans on staying with Facebook into 2019.

I don't know Stretch's reasons but I can guess it has at least something to do with last week's damaging NYT scoop, the one (for those losing track) that detailed how the company's leaders ignored warnings of Russian meddling and fought back against critics.

Legal recruiter Steve John told Caroline that it's not uncommon for a departing GC to stick around a little longer during times of crisis. While Caroline said that she can't be sure if the NYT story is what made Stretch change his plans, it's almost certainly complicated Facebook's search for a replacement:

“Recruiters I spoke with said that Facebook's search for a new GC is likely much harder than it would have been just a few years ago, before the company was hit with a slew of international criticism for breaches and its role in spreading misinformation That search could get harder with each new crisis. But there are also some in-house lawyers who love the adrenaline rush that comes with a crisis—so we'll have to wait and see.”

Be Careful What You Look For …

What's the oddest thing you've ever learned about a potential business partner during due diligence? For Ernst Brod, the managing director of the disputes and litigation team at Alvarez & Marsal, it was the time he found that a jailed head of state was “pulling the strings” of his client's potential partner.

Law.com reporter Sue Reisinger writes that companies are embarking on ever deeper due diligence, especially into overseas companies, but not just in the countries you'd expect. Here's a few highlights from that report …

➤ Brian Meyer, the general counsel at private investment firm Fir Tree, said that due diligence tends to start with the a check on whether a potential partner has ever violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. However, sometimes, that isn't enough.

➤ From Brod: “We always start with a very broad public record review, going into blogs and message boards and social networks. There's even an artificial intelligence software tool that lets us go below the surface of the web and into blogs and message boards that are not indexed or are hard to find, including on the dark web … If we want more, then it's boots on the ground.”

➤ Surprises are rare but it's better to be surprised before a deal, than after. “When we hire someone to investigate, we are usually pretty comfortable that it is confirmatory of what we think we've already found in our own search,” Meyer said.

Inside Knowledge

Remember that thing I was talking about in the intro? Well, here it is. And for the first-ever Inside Knowledge, Stephen Moore, chief security strategist of Exabeam, discusses an overlooked part of a response to a cyberattack: the breach notification letter.

Moore says that before such an event happens, companies should organize a team to write a mock breach letter. “The product of this exercise, a simple letter, will represent your message to the world about your failure in the event you have a breach,” Moore writes.

Some basics to include in the letter, Moore says, are when the company discovered the breach, how long the company has known about the breach and a detailed description of the information which has been hacked into or stolen. He said the person writing it should include everything they would want to know if their own information had been accessed.

Hopefully, you'll never have to send out a real letter with the grave news that customers' personal information has been breached.

Do you have some advice you think other in-house legal leaders would benefit from? Send me an email at [email protected] and we can talk about it!

Don't Miss-

Wednesday, November 28-Thursday, November 29. Legal industry players will gather at ALM's LegalWeek Connect in London for keynotes, workshops and round tables on collaboration, diversity and talent. Featured speakers include Clare Wardle, general counsel of Coca Cola European Partners; Helen Hayes, legal director for Uber in Northern and Eastern Europe; and Jeremy Barton, general counsel of KPMG UK.

The Global Leaders in Law on Dec. 4 will be having an event in London on the year of change. They will be having the same event in Dublin, Ireland, on Dec. 5. GLL is an invitation-only membership group offering general counsel a global platform for in-person collaboration to exchange ideas and receive advice and guidance from peers. For more information, contact Meena Heath at [email protected].

On the Move-

A New Strain Of GC. Now that marijuana is legal in Canada, companies are hiring legal counsel to combat whatever challenges the industry may face. Wayland Group this week announced the hiring of in-house veteran Matthew McLeod as its first GC. He joins the cannabis company after working as the VP of legal and compliance for Sigma Systems, a Toronto based tech company.

Prepaid General Counsel. A prepaid card company announced last week that it had hired a new GC. 3Pea International Inc. announced the hiring of Robert Strobo as its general counsel and chief legal officer. Storbo has spent his career working in-house at the Republic Bank & Trust Co. in Louisville, Kentucky. While there, he became the bank's deputy general counsel.

Media Counsel. Jon Fine will serve as the deputy GC for media at tabloid publisher American Media Inc., following the departure of Cameron Stracher. Fine has a significant amount of media experience as he previously worked in-house for NBC and Amazon.

Trying a new top lawyer. HR solutions company TriNet announced on Monday that Samantha Wellington will be taking over as the company's chief legal officer effective immediately. She replaces Brady Mickelson who announced he would be resigning from the company in August. He will, however, remain as a vice president of the company until Dec. 31 to help with the transition.

Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for reading Inside Track. I'll be back with another edition next week …