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Hal Ostrow

"Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"

Robert Hunter

Key Service Areas

  • Technology Transactions, Privacy, and Cybersecurity
  • Arbitration and Mediation
  • Business and Corporate Planning

616.233.5120

Legal Assistant - Jennifer Dunham

About Hal

How do you help businesses and individuals?

As a business attorney who focuses on serving clients who provide information technology and creative services, my practice includes:

Technology Transactions, Privacy, and Cybersecurity: I assist numerous businesses in formulating, negotiating, and drafting privacy policies, service agreements, terms of use, statements of work, data ownership and licensing contracts, and cybersecurity prevention and response plans. As a Certified Information Privacy Professional/US (CIPP/US), I track constant changes to privacy laws, rules, and regulations, and regularly advise businesses on compliance with laws such as the TCPA, HIPAA, CAN-SPAM, FCRA and FACTA, the EU’s GDPR, and numerous state privacy laws, rules, and regulations.

Creative Professionals: I advise software developers, designers, and other creative professionals in documenting their relationship with their clients – and clients doing business with creative professionals – including negotiating and drafting software and design service agreements and statements of work. I focus on ensuring that all parties understand their obligations to one another and the terms on which each deliverable is to be provided.

General Business Counsel: I help business owners form new companies and serve as a general counsel to numerous small and medium-sized businesses. On a day-to-day basis, I assist my clients in navigating matters ranging from formation to relationships with investors to the interaction with third parties to mergers and acquisitions. I also help individuals and businesses negotiate non-competition, non-solicitation, and non-circumvention agreements – and resolve disputes involving restrictive covenants.

The common thread running through each area of my practice is innovation. As technology evolves, the body of law addressing our relationship with data grows, too. I work proactively with my clients to continually assess the legal foundations of their business relationships.

What is the most important advice that you have given a client?

Listen. The only way to ever get to a win-win in a deal is to know what the other party considers to be a win. The only way to do that is to listen. Listening doesn’t mean not being aggressive; it means obtaining insight we otherwise wouldn’t have so that we can develop effective strategies and tactics to reach our objective.

What did you learn in your first year of practice that you still utilize today?

I was privileged to begin my practice by serving as a judicial law clerk. The judge for whom I clerked imparted in me the importance of evaluating every possible approach to the cases on his docket, even if that position hadn’t been briefed. In a transactional practice that often means looking at every deal from multiple angles until finding a way to meet every party’s goals and expectations in a way most beneficial to my client.

Education

University of Pittsburgh School of Law, J.D., 1999

Wittenberg University, B.A., 1996

Certified Information Privacy Professional, United States (CIPP/US)

Q: What is the most important ingredient to making a positive legal experience?

A:

Setting clear goals for every phase of a transaction and continually making sure that we’re on track to meet them. We can’t predict everything, but we can have a smoother path to getting to a successful result if we know what “success” means at the outset.

I served on the State Bar of Michigan’s “Building a 21st Century Practice” Task Force and have presented to numerous other groups on the intersection of law and technology. I am a member of Rhoades McKee’s Information Technology committee, where I advise my colleagues on matters ranging from new privacy regulations to the software and services we use on a day to day basis.

Associations

American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Member, National Council, 2014-Present & Michigan Council, 2009-Present

Grand Rapids Bar Association, Member

Grand Rapids SmartZone Local Development Finance Authority Board, 2021-2023 & Chair, 2022-2023

International Association of Privacy Professionals, Member

The Kiski School, Board of Trustees, 2023-Present

Michigan State Bar Foundation, Fellow, 2015-Present

State Bar of Michigan, Member

  • State Bar of Michigan, Building a 21st Century Practice Committee, 2015-2016

  • State Bar of Michigan, Judicial Qualifications Committee, 2013-2015

  • State Bar of Michigan, Law & the Media Committee, 2012-2015

  • State Bar of Michigan, Representative Assembly, 2007-2010

Bar Admission

State of Michigan

Supreme Court of the United States

U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit

U.S. Court of Federal Claims

U.S. District Court, Western District of Michigan

U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois

Awards and Recognition

Grand Rapids Magazine, Top Lawyer in Information Technology Law, 2020-Present

Super Lawyers®, Rising Star, 2010 and 2012-2014

Avvo Client's Choice Award, 2012

University of Pittsburgh, CALI Excellence for the Future Award for Legal Negotiation, 1999

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