Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Mks Instruments
Search every verified Kathleen Burke interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In December 2021, Burke testified at a DMCA Section 1201 hearing, arguing that the environment for video game console repair had changed since 2018. She stated that Microsoft had stopped repairing devices not in active production, such as the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, leaving consumers with no official repair options. She also cited global supply chain vulnerabilities, including the COVID-19 pandemic and trade relations with China, as reasons for the necessity of repair exemptions. In September 2021, Burke participated in a virtual discussion where she described her approach to managing a legal department. She said that the right contract review process depends on a company's risk profile and available resources, and that training non-legal staff and developing a playbook can allow for greater autonomy. Burke emphasized the importance of hiring lawyers with business pragmatism and a sense of humor, and noted that her department grew from a one-person role to a team of 20 as MKS Instruments' revenue increased from $300 million to $2.3 billion.
“I think the right answer depends on the nature of the business that you are representing. What might be right for my company wouldn't necessarily be right for somebody else's. You have to look at what's the risk profile of your business agreements, the skill set available, and other qualitative and quantitative factors...”
“Anything that has to do with IP ownership, when you're talking about developing something with a customer or a vendor, or anything that has to do with development and IP, that's going to get reviewed by lawyers. There are certain product categories that are particularly complex and bring their own set of risk factors,...”
“For some companies, you might just have a dollar threshold and say under a certain dollar threshold we're going to live with this. But sometimes, at least in the case of my company, we layer qualitative factors on top of that.”
“If you are able to train the other people who are touching the contract in terms of saying here's our risk profile that we can live up to — we can't live with unlimited liability — so if that's proposed, escalate it. You can also set parameters and if you go beyond these parameters, then you escalate it.”
“One of the most important things from my perspective is business pragmatism, which is really kind of solutions-focused analysis. Your deliverable isn't the legal analysis; your deliverable is the business solution.”
“We have built a department that is approachable and has a very good relationship with the business. It's not like 'oh god we got to go to legal with this.' They really see us as people who can help navigate these issues, even with the most complex, sensitive IP and biggest customer issues.”
“Once you've got credibility, in those cases where somebody wants to do something you say no you can't do that but here's how you can do it. People aren't throwing up their hands and saying go ahead, legal is getting in the way again.”
“Training is really a critical component. Rather than just cutting folks loose and saying you can run with this low risk contract, you really need to train the folks that are going to be on the front ends of some of these deals.”
“We have developed a playbook for review which allows people to reference information, sample clauses, things like that so they can take a little bit more autonomy, but the legal department's always there as well.”
“A sense of humor is very important because it's pretty stressful. If you can laugh about it and feel like your teammates are rooting for you too, it just makes things a lot easier.”
“MKS Instruments is in a highly cyclical semiconductor capital equipment space, so the company is very conservative about full-time staff and prefers to maintain a baseline and pull in external resources as needed during cycle highs and lows.”
“Having an in-house legal team deeply involved in mergers and acquisitions is absolutely essential because they understand the business and risks better than outside counsel.”
“We developed a hybrid IP model where some patent work is done in-house and some outsourced, balancing cost, expertise, and business continuity risks.”
“The legal department grew from a one-person part-time role to a team of 20, evolving alongside the company's growth from $300 million to $2.3 billion in revenue.”
“Being a general counsel is like being a conductor of an orchestra, aligning highly skilled individuals to produce a productive output that supports the company's strategy.”
Kathleen Burke explains how the environment in video game console repair has changed in the last three years, leaving ...
Gemma Dreher, President of ACC-Northeast speaks with Kathleen Burke, Senior Vice President and General Counsel from MKS ...
A Virtual Discussion with Kathleen Burke, GC MKS Instruments and Gemma Dreher, President, Acc-Northeast. The path to GC ...
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