Dad; husband of an African-American immigrant; loving father of three beautiful mixed-race children; grand-child of Irish immigrants on his mother's side with his father's side including Irish-American and Hungarian/Romanian-American grandparents. His relatives include Asian individuals, Black individuals, Hispanic individuals, White individuals, and a variety of mixtures. Like the US, the Hallihan family is 100% American and a melting pot of many races, ethnicities and nationalities.

Hal is the middle child of seven; from a blue-collar, working class, proud union family. He worked his way through school to obtain an engineering degree and, later, a law degree. He is not afraid to speak truth to power, even in situations where he believed doing so may result in being fired. 

Hal has long provided service to the community, of the unpaid variety. Among other things, as a child, he served as an altar boy, his mother "persuaded" him, along with an older sibling, to pull weeds and perform other chores for a widowed neighbor and her mentally ill adult-child, he was a long-time volunteer for Chicago Cares, he is a long-time volunteer for a local ministry that provides meals to those in need, he volunteers in a security role at his church, he was part of the planning committee that planned a Christmas party for children from Lydia Home and volunteered at the event, and he has provided numerous hours of pro bono legal services. When a non-profit invited  Hal to speak to the legislature in Springfield concerning proposed cuts to mental health services, he did so. Hal also volunteered as an observer of the 2014 vote count when he was asked if he was willing to do so on behalf of Treasurer Michael Frerichs, when Michael first won the office in a very close race. He says it was a very interesting experience, while simultaneously being incredibly boring. Also, when he found out that Covid caused so many who had acted as election judges to stop doing so, Hal took days off to put in the long hours over several days that are required to prepare for and work as an election judge. 

Having been raised in a large family that encountered struggles, Hal understands struggles, just like the vast majority of us do. He has had struggles in his life and has long witnessed the struggles of others. As someone with multiple relatives having various degrees of mental illness, Hal knows the difficulty getting a family member treatment if they do not want it and the inordinate effort it can sometimes take to get them the appropriate treatment.

Hal is the middle child of seven. His father (Richard) often spoke of the extreme difficulty his own family experienced after his own father (Hal's grandfather) died when Richard was very young. Richard began working a local grocery store, at a very young age, to help his family out and, later, became a union bricklayer when he was just 15 years old. After getting married (to Mary) and having seven kids, Richard continued working for many years as a bricklayer but eventually (while Hal was in grade school) took a job as a custodian at a local high school because a back injury from a car accident, where Richard's vehicle got hit by a cement truck (back when you didn't get huge payouts for such things), coupled with a long downturn in the construction industry.

With the change in careers and seven children, money was always tight and Hal (and his older siblings) found jobs to buy their own clothes, pay for other things, and save for college. Starting by around sixth or seventh grade, Hal made money by mowing lawns and performing chores for neighbors. At 14, he also began working at a local pizza place and worked there throughout high school, including several school nights every week. After working at the pizza place on Saturday afternoons, he worked a 2nd job at a local "news company," overnight on Saturday and until 7, 8, or 9 am Sunday morning. Hal also worked for a summer at K-mart. 

Hal's father was a disabled veteran who, as a young man, was drafted into the army during the Korean War, despite having severely highly arched feet. an army doctor was scheduled to check Richard's feet (after basic training) to determine whether Richard should even be deployed because of the issues involved with having feet that had such an unusually high arch. However, the army shipped Richard out before the army's specialist doctor arrived at the base to examine Richard. Richard's service resulted in a disability and, years later, the military was repeatedly criticized in the news for rating veterans' disabilities too low. The VA spoke with Richard about increasing his disability rating and Hal's parents discussed the issue but rejected the proposed increase in his disability rating because they decided he was doing "ok" and they were concerned that if Richard was given a higher disability rating, that might mean there was "less" available for another disabled veteran who might need it more than Richard did. Although Hal later learned that his parents' assumption was incorrect, that teaching of thinking about others is something Hal took to heart. 

During his early career, in engineering, Hal was known for working well with clients and finding solutions to issues they faced, finding and helping to resolve latent defects that had long-caused issues in a number of product lines, working well with his bosses while simultaneously speaking truth to power, and having the backs of co-workers in other departments that were in more vulnerable positions. Some of his favorite memories include: (1) prompting the immediate end of a ridiculous meeting (where the manager of the company was yelling and swearing at everyone) by speaking truth to power, despite the fact that Hal thought he would be fired. After the manager immediately ending the meeting after Hal spoke, Hal whispered to a colleague as they left, "I thought I was about to get canned" and his co-worker responded with something like "I thought you were too but as soon as you said it, I wish I had.";  (2) when someone in customer service came to him worried they were about to get fired for doing something (that was basically the right thing to do), he told them that if it became a big issue to just say that Hal approved doing it, but just don't bother mentioning he only did so after the fact. His co-worker was hesitant and expressed concern that Hal might get fired, but Hal told them not to worry about it because while Hal thought it was possible his co-worker might get fired over the issue, Hal believed he had already proved himself and built up enough credibility with those in charge that it was a lot less likely that he would be let go; and (3) Hal enjoyed talking to the blue-collar workers in the factory and having a beer with them after work and, likely because of that, they were often willing to point him in the right direction when there was an issue (sometimes even saying something like, "I'll tell you but I wouldn't tell any of the others.")

After receiving his law degree, Hal began working on large, complex, high-dollar value litigations. Even as an inexperienced attorney, Hal would come up with innovative suggestions and strategies that more seasoned attorneys decided were a good idea to use, so they were used by the team. Some of Hal's favorite things included: (1) although not related to his specialized area of practice, basically saving the life of someone (pre-Affordable Care Act) when their health insurance carrier insisted it would not cover his treatment for leukemia because; (a) they alleged it was a pre-existing condition and (b) asserted they would not have provided him coverage if he had remembered to mention he had the flu almost a year before applying for the policy; (2) saving a small local company that was already struggling after the housing crisis and was being sued for patent infringement by a large multi-national company, which basically became the largest "pro bono" project Hal ever took on; (3) researching the rules of civil procedure or various laws and coming up with something that few, if any, had done before; (4) winning a discovery motion concerning electronic discovery and meta-data (at a time when the issue was not common) and then, when the litigation was over, noticing how many large law firms had written articles and client-alerts concerning the favorable decision that largely tracked Hal's arguments; and (5) transforming an often-used losing argument around by researching and considering the interaction of various rules to reposition a variation of the same argument into a winning one and seeing the significantly more experienced opposing counsel (from one of the largest firms in Chicago) being at a loss for words, even while his mouth was actually moving.

Address:

7132 N HARLEM AVE, Suite112

Chicago, IL 60631

USA

Phone:

312 513 9531

Email:

info@halhallihan.com