Google Inc.’s lawyers are not afraid of change. And they can’t be, not at a company that is creating or entering new businesses, expanding around the globe and hit with novel litigation and regulatory challenges seemingly every month.
And now, of course, the company’s structure is undergoing a transformation, and so too the legal department. With the formation of Alphabet, the company’s big search and related businesses will operate as Google while its health care and more experimental “moon shot” businesses—like fiber Internet and driverless cars—will be run from separate silos. As part of that shift, longtime Google general counsel Kent Walker has taken on a new set of responsibilities and six additional direct reports even as other pieces of his portfolio are shipped off to Google’s new sister business units.
