Blake Hutchins
Local Government Law, Business, Property Issues, Employment Law
Blake joined the firm after twenty-five years in the software industry as corporate counsel, executive, project manager, consultant, entrepreneur, and creative writer. He likes helping people build strong organizations and robust processes to help them manage risk appropriately and execute successful business strategies. His practice focuses on business law, property issues, employment law, and local government law.
Blake spent his childhood living in Finland, Sweden, and the US, as his father worked as foreign service officer in the State Department. He went to high school in Northern California and then attended the University of California at Davis, graduating with a degree in International Relations cum laude and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. During that time, he spent a year as an exchange student at the University of Lund in Sweden, where he studied Economic History and became fluent in Swedish. After graduation, he worked as a typesetter, graphic designer, and a wildlands firefighter before returning to Davis for a Teaching Credential in Social Studies. He taught as a substitute and then as a teacher for at-risk middle schoolers, while moonlighting for a catering business. In 1990, he moved to Eugene to attend law school at the Oregon School of Law, getting his JD in 1993. He was an associate editor on the Oregon Law Review with a focus on constitutional law. He joined the Oregon State Bar in 1993.
After Law School, he worked for two years as a public defender with Umpqua Valley Defense Services in Roseburg, then returned to Eugene to join videogame maker Dynamix as a creative writer. This change kicked off a career in the software industry, where he participated in startups, served as Chief Operating Officer and Corporate Counsel for a fast-growing web development company, ran his own consulting business, and worked at Symantec in their escalation management and IT procurement divisions. In addition, he served as program and project manager for a small business providing diversity, equity, and inclusion review to higher education publishers. In 2020, he received a BS in Business with Project Management focus from Capella University, Summa Cum Laude. He returned to the practice of law in 2023.
Blake’s practice includes assisting clients public/private development agreements, employment matters, entity formation, asset purchase and lease agreements, general contract drafting and review, and policy drafting and review. He brings extensive experience with the day-to-day issues, risks, and challenges businesses and organizations face in the course of their work, as well as practical understanding of how different organizations function, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
In his spare time, Blake continues to write speculative fiction, in which he has a modest publication history and won the Writers of the Future award in 2006. He also enjoys hiking and bodyweight training, reading, martial arts, and spending time with his adult children and cats.