Apple’s Top Lawyer Weathers Legal Battles for Another Big Payday

Apple Inc. disclosed in a securities filing that its general counsel Katherine “Kate” Adams earned almost $27.2 million in total compensation last year.

The proxy statement filed Jan. 10 by the consumer electronics giant shows that Adams remains one of the highest-paid legal executives in corporate America.

Separate securities filings by Apple show that Adams, hired in 2017, has sold off about $140 million in company stock within the last four years. Adams sold almost $43.7 million in company shares last year; more than $46.5 million in 2023; more than $38.1 million in 2022; and more than $10.7 million in 2021. She still owns Apple shares valued at more than $42.4 million, per Bloomberg data.

Stock awards made up about $22.2 million of Adams pay package last year, per Apple’s proxy filing. She also received $5 million in cash, including $1 million in base salary. The legal chief’s remuneration was roughly on par with what Adams has earned in prior years, including a $26.9 million package in 2023. Apple CEO Tim Cook saw his total compensation rise 18% last year, to $74.6 million.

Adams, 60, oversees all legal matters at Apple, including compliance, corporate governance, global security, intellectual property, litigation, and privacy. In an October discussion at her alma mater, the University of Chicago Law School, Adams described how her two clerkships—with US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer when he served on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit—and working for the US Department of Justice and in private practice helped shape her career.

“Though the theoretical responsibilities of in-house counsel are the same, in-house responsibilities have increased in scope and complexity truly exponentially,” said Adams, citing an “Armageddon of change” facing corporate lawyers. “These jobs have gone from sort-of lifestyle jobs to the work being incredibly challenging, extremely interesting, and very demanding.”

Apple did not respond to a comment request about Adams.

The Cupertino, California-based technology company has faced a growing docket of legal and regulatory issues. Apple ended five years of litigation earlier this month by agreeing to a $95 million settlement in a lawsuit that accused Apple’s voice-assistant Siri of privacy violations via its access of confidential communications and sharing them with third parties without consent.

DLA Piper and Morrison & Foerster represented Apple in that agreement. The two law firms have collectively handled more than 10% of Apple’s cases in US federal courts within the last five years, according to Bloomberg Law data. Apple has turned to Big Law firms and boutiques to fend off an array of threats, such as patent claims, labor and employment disputes, and antitrust entanglements.

Apple has reorganized its law department in recent years, including parting ways with its former chief privacy officer Jane Horvath, who is now a partner and co-chair of the technology and innovation industry group at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, another firm that has handled legal work for the company.

Apple is one of several large companies that have shed the position of privacy chief or moved its duties and responsibilities into different functions. Last year, however, Apple hired former Netflix Inc. and Discord Inc. lawyer Hilary Ware to be its new head of privacy legal and online safety.