Sometimes top lawyers seem to rush in where angels fear to tread. That’s the impression one got from Paul Chinnery’s decision to take on the job of general counsel at NI Group Limited, the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of Rupert Murdoch’s scandal-plagued News Corporation. With a raft of legal troubles still facing the parent company in the months and years ahead, Chinnery will now bear responsibility for all legal issues surrounding editorial, compliance, and commercial activity for a notoriously compromised unit at one of the most controversial companies on the planet.

Not all of NI Group’s best-known products will require his oversight, however. On July 10, 2011, in the midst of turmoil over multiple allegations of phone hacking by News International, it published the final edition of its venerable paper, News of the World. Numerous company top brass have been called before Parliamentary committees, have resigned under fire, been indicted, and/or placed under arrest. The current leadership clearly regards Chinnery’s hire as integral to an all-around cleanup process.

“We now have a great team in place to continue the work underway in changing how we operate as a business,” News International chief executive Tom Mockridge said in a statement following Chinnery’s appointment. “This means rigorous adherence to high standards and compliance with new procedures.”

Chinnery left a senior legal counsel job at WorldPay Ltd., an Internet payment system similar to PayPal, this past spring. He took over the NI Group position from Allen & Overy partner Simon Toms. Toms had served as interim general counsel since Jonathan Chapman stepped down from the position in August 2011; Toms has since returned to Allen & Overy full time. The multiple turnovers in the top legal spot at NI was part of a general upheaval that also saw the newspaper division change its name from News International Limited to NI Group Limited.

Before moving to WorldPay, Chinnery spent 13 years at the U.K. network Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, most recently as director of legal and commercial affairs. When celebrity magazine mogul Richard Desmond bought Channel 5 in August 2010, he overhauled the staff and management, eliminating Chinnery’s position.

Prior to his time at Channel 5, Chinnery spent four years in the mid-1990s as a solicitor at Stephens Innocent Solicitors. Stephens Innocent later merged with Finers to become Finers Stephens, a firm thoroughly involved in media representation, in 1999. Finers’s current name partner Mark Stephens represented Julian Assange of Wikileaks and has been a go-to talking head for British media throughout News Corporation’s phone-hacking scandal.

Chinnery received his law degree from Trent Polytechnic in 1990, and his bachelors in history from the University of Nottingham. He declined to be interviewed for this profile.

See also: “Putting the News Corp. Internal Investigation in the GC’s Hands,” CorpCounsel, June 2012.