Multihyphenate alumna Kelly Burris is a highflyer

Kelly Burris has lived a lot of lives for one person.

The Western alumna, BS ’88, and recently elected vice chair of the University’s Board of Trustees, has been an aerospace engineer, a licensed pilot and an intellectual property attorney.

For the past decade, she has combined those skill sets at her Detroit-based IP law firm. In a unique “fly-to” service model, Burris pilots her own Daher TBM 940 aircraft—which she refers to as her “secret business weapon”—to meet with tech companies across the U.S. and Europe.

“When I started Burris Law 10 years ago, I had a vision to build an IP firm founded on the principle of when you show up, when you listen and when you understand what your clients are building, everything else follows,” she says. 

Burris’ vision and hard work have paid off. Her award-winning firm has served more than 600 clients—from individual inventors all the way up to Fortune 50 companies—applying for thousands of patents worldwide and securing more than 2,000 in the U.S. Her “flight crew” has grown from Burris herself and two paralegals to 22 lawyers and staff, and they’ve logged more than 3,500 flight hours on their visits to clients. Last year, the firm expanded its footprint with the addition of a St. Louis, Missouri, office.

The “fly-to” model continues to be a game changer.

“Being with a client in person enables us to collaborate better and deliver smarter strategies,” Burris says. “I want clients to view us as their local counsel no matter where they are located. 

“When a client has an innovation, I can say, ‘I’ll be there tomorrow morning,’ as if I am right down the street. That ability to show up changes everything.”

Burris credits Western with helping her launch her successful and varied career.

“So much of where my professional career is today started at Western Michigan University,” Burris says. “That’s where I studied aeronautical engineering while being a student-athlete, learned to fly, received hands-on career training through internships before graduation, and began to understand how much I loved being close to innovation.

“Those experiences shaped much of what came after: from my engineering career and path into law to the way I built Burris Law around showing up for clients, being an integral team member and seeing their technology firsthand.”

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