Microsoft Taps New Legal Chief in Latest C-suite Reshuffle (1)

Microsoft Corp. has elevated general counsel Jonathan Palmer to be its chief legal officer, succeeding Hossein Nowbar, who confirmed in a late Monday email that he left the technology giant this month.

Palmer has worked for Microsoft since 2010. During that period, he’s held a variety of key legal jobs at the Redmond, Wash.-based company, which is facing a host of challenges as artificial intelligence transforms its business. Palmer previously was a managing partner for the Asian offices of Heller Ehrman, a now-defunct law firm that he left in 2008 to join Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Changes in Microsoft’s legal team and its C-suite overall—the company recently tapped former associate general counsel Cari Benn to succeed its retiring chief privacy officer Julie Brill—are a sign of the company’s complexities.

Palmer took over Microsoft’s massive litigation portfolio in 2022 from its former leader David Howard, a former Big Law partner who now works for the Walt Disney Co. Palmer turned over litigation oversight two years ago to deputy general counsel Cynthia “Cindy” Randall. That notable legal leadership position is one of many that have changed hands at Microsoft in recent years.

Nowbar and Palmer both took on their most recent legal roles in September 2023 as Microsoft neared the completion of its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc., the largest deal in its history. Microsoft’s law department is part its company’s corporate, external, and legal affairs team—known internally as CELA—which is overseen by Bradford Smith, a longtime former legal chief who is now president and vice chairman of the company.

Smith, who is one of Microsoft’s highest-paid executives, and Palmer didn’t respond to requests for comment. Microsoft declined to discuss the matter.

Nowbar, a former Davis Wright Tremaine associate who has spent nearly three decades at Microsoft, said via email that he isn’t retiring from the legal profession but wasn’t yet ready to disclose his next steps. Nowbar took to the company-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn to detail the benchmarks that have helped shape his career.

“I am closing one of the most meaningful chapters of my career. When I joined as a young attorney, I was inspired by the promise of the personal computer and internet,” Nowbar wrote in a Tuesday morning post that also said Microsoft’s “legal future is in outstanding hands” with Palmer as legal chief.

Nowbar, an Iranian immigrant, said that during his time at Microsoft he sought to put people first and show that the “law can be a catalyst for innovation and trust, not just a safeguard.”

Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and space exploration are at an inflection point that could transform the global economy, Nowbar said. Going forward, Nowbar said he hopes to “help organizations embrace disruptive technologies responsibly and sustainably to drive economic and societal impact.”

Microsoft, co-founded by Bill Gates in the 1970s, mandated this month that its employees be in the office at least three days a week after shedding 15,000 jobs across two major layoff rounds this year. Public filings show that some of the reductions in force have hit the company’s law department, with at least 30 attorney jobs axed in Microsoft’s home state of Washington.

The increased prevalence of agentic AI tools, which Microsoft has embraced through its partnership with OpenAI and other investments, has reportedly been a contributing factor in at least some of the job cuts.

In-House Legal Elite

Microsoft’s legal group, which was led by Smith for more than a decade, has long been a recruiting ground for top talent.

The legal team’s alumni include former general counsels Horacio Gutierrez, now the top lawyer at Disney, and Deborah “Dev” Stahlkopf, legal chief at Cisco Systems Inc. Erich Anderson, Microsoft’s former head of intellectual property, was US general counsel for TikTok’s parent company until last year.

Microsoft has restocked its in-house legal roster. Lisa Monaco, a former O’Melveny & Myers partner who was a deputy US attorney general in the Biden administration, joined Microsoft this year to lead its global policy efforts. Curtis “C.J.” Mahoney, a former Williams & Connolly partner hired by Microsoft in 2021, was also promoted to general counsel in March. Mahoney’s new role sees him oversee product and services legal at Microsoft.

Decisions made by Microsoft’s legal leaders have often reverberated within Big Law and make headlines. The company has sought to phase out the billable hour by its outside counsel and pushed to increase diversity among its legal advisers. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a memo last month calling out some firms and companies like Microsoft for implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that his office considers “illegal” and “inappropriate.”

When Microsoft parted ways this year with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in a lawsuit related to the company’s buy of Activision Blizzard, the move was scrutinized as it came in the aftermath of that firm’s legal services deal with the Trump administration. So too did Microsoft’s decision to cease sending lobbying work to Covington & Burling—where Smith was once a partner—back in 2022.

Microsoft also has strong ties to K&L Gates, whose late founding partner is Bill Gates’ father. William “Bill” Neukom, the first general counsel at Microsoft, was a partner at K&L Gates. Neukom died in July at 83.