Ullyot, who will head up Facebook’s heavily worked legal team, was previously the chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales, the former US Attonery-General who resigned last year after being accused of perjury.

As reported in The Lawyer, Ullyot has also held the position of general counsel at AOL Time Warner Europe and chief of staff at the Justice Department of the US Government. Most recently, following the Gonzales debacle, he spent six months as a partner at Kirk & Ellis.

Facebook has certainly had its fare share of legal issues. In 2007, it was sued by the owners of social networking site ConnectU.com – its owners claiming that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their source code, design and business plan. The case was eventually settled.

Then earlier this year, Facebook was forced to dump one of its most popular applications, “Scrabulous”, after “Scramble” manufacturer Mattel complained of copyright infringement.

And just recently, Facebook’s “Beacon” program became the target of a class action filed in California, with applicants claiming it breached privacy and compute fraud laws.

It looks like Ullyot will be kept on his toes.

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