The Attorney

Derek R. Haake.

Founder and attorney, Haake Law Group, PC. Practicing Missouri law since 2011. Two decades in technology before that.

The short version

Derek Haake has been a licensed Missouri attorney since September 27, 2011, with a legal practice that combines complex estate work, business and technology counsel, and a long-running interest in the intersection of constitutional law, privacy, and emerging technology.

What sets Derek’s practice apart is what came before law school: nearly two decades in technology and telecommunications, where he built and ran companies, designed software, and worked at the engineering edge of how networks actually function. That background informs everything he does as a lawyer — particularly in technology law, AI governance, HIPAA, and constitutional matters involving government surveillance and data collection.

Legal experience

Missouri Bar admission: September 27, 2011

Derek’s legal career has spanned in-house counsel work, complex estate administration, business representation, and constitutional litigation. Notable experience includes:

Estate Settlement Officer, Bank of America

Administered taxable estates, including a single estate exceeding $100 million in value. Worked closely with families, beneficiaries, tax professionals, and probate courts on matters ranging from straightforward distributions to multi-jurisdictional, multi-year administrations.

Concurrent Estate Planning Practice

While at Bank of America, Derek maintained an independent estate planning practice with the bank’s permission, representing both bank-referred clients and his own private clients. This dual perspective — having sat on both the planning and the settlement sides of estate work — informs how he drafts documents today. He has seen, firsthand, what happens when documents are unclear, outdated, or sloppily drafted.

Founder & General Counsel, Campus Shift (Ohio)

Co-founded a technology startup, building both the consumer-facing applications and the backend infrastructure while also handling the company’s legal work — formation, contracts, IP, and compliance.

Pre-law career: technology and telecommunications

Before law school, Derek spent more than a decade in senior roles in telecommunications, software, and data analytics.

Director, OptiCon

Helped lead the company’s acquisition of Corning Cable Systems’ telecommunications monitoring division — at the time, the largest fiber optic monitoring infrastructure in the industry. The technology Derek’s team developed could detect a fiber optic cable break to within ±5 feet, against an industry standard of approximately 33% accuracy. For traditional copper telephone lines, that level of imprecision was tolerable. For long-haul fiber, it was operationally useless. The company went public during Derek’s first year of law school.

ALLTEL / Valor Telecom / Windstream Communications

As part of the ALLTEL account team, Derek helped create Valor Telecom, which subsequently merged with ALLTEL’s landline operations to become Windstream Communications — a publicly traded telecommunications company that today provides service to millions of customers.

Database and Data Warehousing Instructor

As a consultant to Valor Telecom, Derek taught CA Easytrieve programming and IBM DB2 data warehousing — enterprise data tools used by financial institutions, telecoms, and government agencies for managing large-scale databases.

This background is why our technology law practice doesn’t read like a brochure. Derek has worked inside the systems that other lawyers only describe.

Education

Juris Doctor, University of Akron School of Law, May 16, 2010

While at Akron, Derek authored a substantial scholarly work titled “Personal data collection, data mining, privacy, fairness and national security” — analyzing how the federal privacy framework, the Fourth Amendment, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Stored Communications Act, and statutes like HIPAA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley interact (and fail to interact) with the realities of large-scale data collection by both private companies and government actors.

The thesis examined questions that have only grown more urgent in the years since: behavioral targeting, predictive profiling, “guilt by association” data mining, government use of National Security Letters, cellular surveillance, smart-grid privacy, and the convergence of cybercrime, terrorism, and warfare. It was written in 2010. The issues it identified now define an entire field of practice.

Practice areas

Derek’s current practice includes:

• Estate planning and probate
• Business law (formation, contracts, M&A, litigation)
• Technology law, AI, and emerging technology
• HIPAA and data privacy
• Civil rights and §1983 constitutional violations
• Adoption, criminal defense, traffic, cannabis regulation, and other matters

See all practice areas →

Professional approach

Derek’s approach to legal practice is shaped by a few core convictions:

Honest counsel matters more than billable hours. Telling a client they don’t need to file a lawsuit, or that their case isn’t strong, is worth more than running up fees on a matter that shouldn’t proceed.

Technical literacy is part of competence. Lawyers who don’t understand the technology their clients use can’t competently advise on contracts, compliance, or risk involving that technology. Derek’s pre-law career means he reads source code, evaluates security architectures, and reviews data flows fluently.

Modern delivery is not a compromise on quality. Virtual practice, flat-fee pricing, and accessible communication aren’t shortcuts. They are reflections of how serious work actually gets done in 2026.

Personal

Derek lives in the St. Louis area with his family. His family is part of the firm’s day-to-day operations.

Contact Derek

Phone: (314) 732-1547 Email: derek@haakelawgroup.com Office: 401 Pine Street, St. Louis, MO 63102 (by appointment only)