Brian Michael, who spent the past five years as deputy general counsel at 21st Century Fox Inc., has returned to private practice by joining King & Spalding as a partner in the firm's special matters and government investigations group in Los Angeles.

A former lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Michael left the firm in late 2012 to go in-house at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., a media conglomerate that would eventually separate into two different companies. Michael's now former employer, New York-based 21st Century Fox, controls Murdoch's broadcast, cable, digital and sports media business operations.

Before leaving his job at the company in Beverly Hills, California, a week ago, Michael participated in an Association of Corporate Counsel panel in April about cooperating with regulators. It's a topic he's well-suited to tackle, given that the former Wilmer litigator spent seven years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. He left his role at the U.S. Department of Justice in April 2010 to join Wilmer as a litigation counsel in the city.