Key Service Areas
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Real Estate Law
- Services for Business and Industry
legal assistant - Patty Doren
Grand Rapids Location
55 Campau Avenue NW, Suite 300
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503
Hastings Location
150 W Court St Suite A
Hastings, MI 49058
Holland Location
11377 James Street
Holland, Michigan 49422
About Jon
How do you help businesses and individuals?
As a business and real estate attorney, I take a practical approach to solving problems in the following practice areas:
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) – I work with buyers, sellers, investors, and lenders in asset sales, stock sales, membership interest and unit sales, mergers, conversions, and spin-offs. I have significant experience working with deals involving private equity and strategic buyers.
Succession Planning/Exit Planning – Counseling owners, key employees and management teams, and next generation family members, I guide the internal and family transitions of business ownership and management.
Commercial Real Estate Development – Serving developers, investors, and lenders through all phases of commercial real estate development, including purchase, finance, construction, leasing, and sale.
Corporate Finance – I advise companies, lenders, and investors in loan transactions and private placements (i.e. non-public sales of securities).
General Corporate – I help start-ups and existing companies with entity formation, creation and modification of governance documents (bylaws, operating agreements, shareholder agreements, buy/sell agreements, etc.), joint ventures and other strategic relationships, and contracts.
What sets you apart from other lawyers in your practice field?
I view my clients’ legal challenges through a business perspective. Typically, legal issues are just one component of a transaction. By keeping legal issues in perspective, I seek legal solutions that make sense from a business perspective and best help my clients achieve their business goals.
What did you learn in your first year of practice that you still utilize today?
I learned to keep scholarly legal analysis out of my practice. Business clients rarely want their attorney to spend the time identifying fifteen different ways to solve a legal problem. Typically, clients want me to find one or two solutions that work so they can focus on their business. Scholarly debates belong in the lunch-room, not the board room.
Education
Indiana University School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, 1997
Hope College, B.A., 1993