Introduction

Bill Hubbard has over 30 years of experience helping lower middle-market companies and other businesses and their owners buy, grow and sell their companies, as well as navigate many other important matters which they face. He serves as Special Counsel to the Handler Thayer Commercial Practice Group and established Hubbard Business Counsel in 1997, after previously having been a partner in two of the largest Chicago law firms. He graduated from West Point (B.S., 1973), and the Illinois Institute of Technology/Chicago-Kent College of Law (J.D., with high honors 1978) and is a Certified Public Accountant.

He is admitted to practice law in the State of Illinois and, to stay current, is a member of each of  the ABA Business Law Committees or Sub-committees (e.g. Mergers and Acquisitions, Securities, Private Equity, Business Law, Taxation, Limited Liability Companies, and Middle Market and Small Business Committees) and Chicago Bar Association Sub-committees (Mergers and Acquisitions, Securities, Taxation), the American Institute of CPAs, the Illinois CPA Society, the Association for Corporate Growth, Alliance of M & A Advisors, and the Midwest Business Brokers and Intermediaries Association. He is a former Director and Education Committee Chair of the National Crowdfunding Association. He helped found, and chaired during its first year, the Middle-Market Pillar of the Private Directors Association. He is a former Director and Past President of the West Point Society of Chicago. He served as an airborne and ranger trained infantry officer for the U.S. Army, Judge Advocate Corps prosecutor and Officer-In-Charge in Berlin and as an Army prosecutor in Augsburg, Germany. Bill and his wife, Susan live in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Most of Bill’s professional life has centered around helping entrepreneurial clients buy, sell, and grow their businesses, such as:

• A buyer or seller doing so for the first time.
• A multi-billion dollar private international firm expanding international operations.
• Assisting other domestic or international legal counsel on behalf of their clients.
• A host of other owners and companies across a wide spectrum of industries and sizes.

Bill is as comfortable negotiating business deals directly with the other owner as well as drafting the complex legal documents needed to protect his clients’ interests and get the sought after result: a successful deal closing.

He’s served as faculty lecturing on the art of M&A to other attorneys and taught the legal portion of an M&A certification course for and to various intermediaries and investment bankers across the country. Bill has been recognized by Super Lawyers on the list of Illinois’ Top Mergers and Acquisitions and Closely Held Business Attorneys. He was also named by Corporate INTL as Business Transition Attorney of the Year in Illinois.