Dr. Richard Thurston is Senior Vice President and General Counsel of TSMC and is responsible for legal and intellectual property management. Prior to this post, Dr. Thurston was Vice President and General Counsel of TSMC.

Dr. Thurston is famous for his global experience in commercial, technology and international law.

Prior to joining TSMC, Dr. Thurston was a Partner at Kelt Capital Partners, LP, Addison, Texas and the Dallas, Texas law firm Haynes and Boone for five years before then. His practice covered general corporate matters, technology-related transactions, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and divestitures, venture capital investments, foreign trade and investment, and the global protection of intellectual property rights. Before Dr. Thurston joined Haynes and Boone, he served as the Regional Counsel, Asia Pacific and Vice President, Corporate Staff, Assistant General Counsel for 12 years at Texas Instruments, where he spent time in both their Dallas headquarters and Tokyo. He was responsible for both the legal activities of Texas Instruments throughout the Asia Pacific region and merger and acquisition activities. The scope of his legal experiences included foreign trade and investment, technology transfer, general corporate matters, intellectual property rights issues, management of corporate entity affairs, contracts, strategic alliances, and dispute resolution for 40 different subsidiaries. Prior to his post at Texas Instruments, Dr. Thurston was an Associate at Duane, Morris & Heckscher, Philadelphia, PA., U.S.A.

Dr. Thurston graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. degree in History from Alma College, and an M.A. degree and a Ph.D. degree in East Asian Studies from University of Virginia in the U.S. He received a J.D. degree from Rutgers School of Law at Camden, New Jersey in the U.S. in 1980. Dr. Thurston also studied R.O.C. Law at Soochow University, 1975-1976, while researching his Ph.D. dissertation: Civil Law Reform in China, 1906-1930. As a bilingual professional, Dr. Thurston is fluent both in English and in Mandarin. He also teaches courses in Entrepreneurism at the Southern Methodist School of Law and the School of Management, University of Texas, both in Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. In September, 2002, Dr. Thurston will teach courses in Soochow University and National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.