Stephen Hulst

About Stephen

How do you help businesses and individuals?

I help businesses and owners navigate through their legal issues, often in the Michigan Business Courts. My experience includes representing clients in all sorts of business-related disputes, including those involving breach of contract, conversion and embezzlement, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and employment-related claims. As part of my business-litigation practice, I also specialize in cases involving business valuation and “business divorce” issues, such as shareholder-oppression, dissenter's rights, and divorce cases where a business interest is involved. I also routinely help clients involved in sales-commission disputes and litigate claims under Michigan’s procuring-cause doctrine and Sales Representative Commission Act.

What sets you apart from other lawyers in your practice field?

Since graduating with a business degree, I have taken comprehensive courses through the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and American Society of Appraisers (ASA). I am currently taking the ASA’s rigorous business-valuation courses, which require me to pass an exam after each course. To date, I have taken three of the four courses, passing all three. My business background and financial training helps me to better understand my clients’ businesses and the economic realities of the case, and gives me the ability to tell the most compelling story I can for my clients.

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

Preparation is key. I learned this early on in my career from working with some great litigators at our firm. They didn't just show up to court and, on the spot, present a winning argument to the judge. Instead, the end product - whether it was a written brief, an oral argument, or an opening statement at trial - was effective because of the effort that went into preparing for it.