Legal counsel from someone who has been on your side of the table.
More than twenty-five years inside Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and a Carlyle portfolio company—negotiating complex transactions, leading global legal teams, and advising boards and senior executives.
Today, that experience is brought directly to companies navigating cross-border transactions and global operations between the United States and Korea.
About Counsel
John S. Kim has spent much of his career inside the rooms where major technology and commercial deals get done—not merely advising from the outside, but negotiating and closing them from the client side.
He built and led the Global Legal Team at SK hynix and negotiated major commercial and technology-licensing transactions at Samsung Electronics. As General Counsel of a Carlyle portfolio company, he oversaw legal affairs at its global headquarters and nine overseas manufacturing sites.
The Law Office of John S. Kim brings clients the perspective of an attorney who has served as both in-house and outside counsel—delivering practical legal guidance in English and Korean, grounded in firsthand responsibility for business outcomes, not just legal advice.
- J.D.
- UCLA School of Law American Jurisprudence Award
- B.A.
- Cornell University Phi Beta Kappa
- Admitted
- State Bar of California
- Languages
- English & Korean
Where this experience was built
Partner and Korea Representative, U.S. Law Firm
General Counsel, Carlyle Portfolio Company
Executive Director, Digital Marketing Company
Global Legal Team Leader, SK hynix
Personally led major negotiations, including multibillion-dollar DRAM supply agreements with key customers in the United States, China, Taiwan, Europe, and Japan. Negotiated and executed manufacturing equipment purchase agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars for semiconductor fabrication facilities in Korea and China, negotiated license agreements securing patent and technology rights critical to fab operations, and negotiated and closed acquisitions of three privately held U.S. companies.
Senior Legal Counsel, Samsung Electronics
How we help businesses move forward
The firm advises companies on commercial transactions, corporate and operational matters, complex commercial and intellectual property disputes, and U.S.–Korea cross-border business. Clients work directly, in English or Korean, with senior U.S.-licensed counsel who brings more than 25 years of experience as both in-house and outside counsel.
Commercial Contracts & Strategic Transactions
Commercial agreements shape how a company generates revenue, secures supply, protects important business interests, and allocates risk and responsibility among the parties. The firm drafts and negotiates these agreements—such as supply, equipment purchase, OEM and ODM manufacturing, distribution, services, technology licensing, and joint development agreements.
Depending on the transaction, the firm negotiates and documents provisions concerning transaction structure, pricing and payment, delivery and acceptance, quality standards and warranties, intellectual property, exclusivity, limitations of liability, indemnification, term and termination, dispute resolution, and other matters that determine the parties’ rights, obligations, and commercial exposure. The goal is a contract that is clear, workable in practice, and reflects the client’s business priorities, negotiating position, and, where relevant, its ongoing commercial relationship with the counterparty.
Discuss Your NeedsHow can we help?Outside General Counsel
Many companies need experienced, senior-level legal leadership without adding a full-time general counsel or building an in-house legal department. Serving as Outside General Counsel, the firm works closely with executives and key decision-makers to identify and frame the legal and business issues, evaluate available courses of action, and develop practical solutions consistent with the company’s operational realities and strategic priorities. The firm advises on major contracts, employment matters, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, business sales and restructurings, governance, compliance, disputes, and other significant operational matters.
The role goes beyond identifying risks and coordinating legal work. Working alongside management, the firm helps weigh legal and commercial trade-offs, establish priorities, make informed decisions, and see those decisions through to practical implementation.
When specialized or local counsel is required, the firm selects and retains appropriate lawyers in the relevant jurisdictions, defines the scope and strategic direction of their work, manages their engagement, and integrates their advice into a unified course of action. The company gains a single senior legal adviser overseeing the overall legal strategy and coordination—rather than having to direct multiple firms separately—helping keep each matter aligned with the client’s objectives, budget, and best interests.
Discuss Your NeedsHow can we help?U.S.–Korea Cross-Border Transactions
U.S. and Korean companies turn to the firm for market entry, joint ventures, strategic investments, acquisitions, business and asset transfers, restructurings, and other cross-border initiatives. The firm advises across the transaction lifecycle, including structuring, legal due diligence, negotiation and drafting of principal agreements, regulatory and licensing analysis, governance and approval processes, closing, and post-closing implementation.
Successful execution depends not only on legal analysis and transaction documents, but also on how decisions are made, communicated, and implemented across headquarters, subsidiaries, and counterparties in different markets. More than 25 years of experience working within and advising multinational companies informs the firm’s approach: anticipating and bridging differences in legal systems, business practices, organizational structures, and negotiating expectations, so that issues can be identified early and the transaction can proceed on a clear and coordinated basis.
Discuss Your NeedsHow can we help?Technology Licensing & Intellectual Property Transactions
Technology transactions require different strategies depending on whether a company is acquiring rights to third-party technology, licensing or transferring its own technology, or collaborating with others to develop and commercialize it. The firm structures, drafts, and negotiates the transactions governing these arrangements, including patent and technology licenses, software agreements, joint development and collaboration arrangements, technology transfers, standards-related agreements, and other strategic intellectual property transactions.
Drawing on extensive in-house experience negotiating technology agreements for global technology companies, the firm negotiates directly with counterparties and drafts the operative contract language addressing the terms that matter most—the scope and permitted use of rights, territory and term, financial terms, exclusivity, ownership and use of improvements and jointly developed technology, performance obligations, warranties, indemnities, responsibility for third-party claims, termination, and post-termination rights.
A well-structured agreement secures the rights the client needs, protects any technology and know-how it contributes, supports the intended business model, and addresses financial, performance, infringement, termination, and transition risks in commercially workable terms.
Discuss Your NeedsHow can we help?Corporate Governance, Compliance & Risk Management
The firm works with boards and senior management to design and strengthen governance, compliance, and risk-management frameworks across multinational operations. This includes clarifying board and management responsibilities; establishing delegation, reporting, and escalation structures between headquarters and overseas subsidiaries; developing contract review and approval processes, internal policies, and controls; and identifying, evaluating, and responding to material legal and business risks.
The test of any framework is whether it strengthens accountability and effective oversight while remaining practical enough to support timely, commercially sound decision-making.
Discuss Your NeedsHow can we help?Dispute Strategy & Litigation Management
The firm advises on complex commercial and intellectual property disputes, including cross-border litigation and international arbitration, from early assessment through resolution. The firm’s approach begins with a clear-eyed assessment of the factual record, business exposure, claims and defenses, jurisdictional and procedural considerations, evidence preservation, settlement options, and the consequences of available courses of action. That assessment forms the basis of a practical response strategy the client can act on.
When a matter requires counsel in multiple jurisdictions, the firm selects and directs appropriate local counsel and manages the scope of their work, budgets, timelines, critical issues, and overall progress, maintaining disciplined control over legal spend while keeping the strategy and key decisions aligned with the client’s legal and business objectives and best interests.
Discuss Your NeedsHow can we help?Experience that protects business value
Representative results from more than twenty-five years of negotiating critical agreements, protecting global operations, and resolving disputes in which substantial business value was at stake.
Global supply and capital-equipment agreements
Negotiated multibillion-dollar semiconductor supply agreements with major customers in the United States, China, Taiwan, Europe, and Japan, as well as capital-equipment purchase agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars for semiconductor fabrication facilities in Korea and China.
Worldwide technology rights secured on improved terms
Led negotiations for Samsung Electronics’ worldwide agreement with Google covering the distribution of Google applications and operating-system technology on Samsung smartphones. Secured a first-of-its-kind contractual obligation requiring Google to indemnify Samsung against third-party intellectual-property infringement claims—a provision Samsung later invoked to obtain indemnification worth hundreds of billions of Korean won. Also negotiated a worldwide license covering essential electronic program guide patents used across Samsung’s global television business, reducing the applicable royalty by more than 50%.
Employees across nine overseas factories
As General Counsel of a Carlyle portfolio company, directed legal affairs across its Seoul headquarters, New York branch, and nine overseas factories employing 23,500 people. During pandemic-driven financial strain, advised executive leadership and the board, led a company-wide workforce restructuring spanning headquarters and overseas subsidiaries, and secured significant relief from unfavorable supply commitments with major global customers.
Major MFN audit and arbitration successfully resolved
Defended SK hynix through a major audit and arbitration arising from allegations that it had breached a most-favored-customer provision. Uncovered the customer’s unauthorized disclosure of confidential pricing information, undermined the basis of its allegations, and secured the complete withdrawal of its claims.
Record royalty recovery secured through arbitration
Built the evidentiary foundation over a year of monthly DVD6C patent-pool meetings—presenting the factual and contractual basis for Samsung’s claim; ensuring that the record was accurately memorialized in the official meeting minutes; and managing outside counsel through arbitration. The effort secured more than $100 million for Samsung Electronics, the largest royalty recovery its Consumer Electronics Division had received at that time.
Recovery maximized following two catastrophic factory fires
Within months of becoming General Counsel, personally led the company’s response to two catastrophic factory fires in Hanoi and near Ho Chi Minh City. Made repeated trips to Vietnam to assess and substantiate losses involving finished garments, raw materials, equipment, machinery, and factory facilities, while coordinating with Marsh and negotiating directly with Vietnamese state-owned insurers. After extensive negotiations, secured a recovery exceeding the maximum projected by Marsh.
Additional experience includes three strategic acquisitions of U.S. technology companies, multinational intellectual-property litigation, global compliance programs, patent-pool formation, international standards organizations, and the establishment of contract-review and approval systems across global operations.
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“I’ve sat in the client’s chair as General Counsel. I know executives don’t need lengthy legal memoranda— they need clear, practical advice that helps them make informed business decisions, move transactions forward, and solve problems.”— John S. Kim
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- Consultations
- By video or phone appointment
- Phone
- +82 10-8184-7793
- john@jskcounsel.com