Beth Kregor is the director of the IJ Clinic on Entrepreneurship. Under Beth’s guidance, University of Chicago law students take their first steps into the practice of law by providing wrap-around legal advice to lower-income entrepreneurs. Beth is passionate about her clients and her causes. With her students, she has structured the ownership of businesses, ranging from a literal mom and pop shop to a group of 50 workers who want to own and run their own company. She has advised clients as they navigate regulatory mazes at the federal, state, and city level. She has counseled companies on their most vital plans and contracts. She also has published reports and articles that have set the agenda for reform of barriers to entrepreneurship in Illinois. And she has become a prominent spokesperson for low-income entrepreneurs in City Hall, Springfield and beyond. She speaks for entrepreneurs who do not normally have a lobbyist working for them in the room—the poor and the yet-to-come. She has especially focused on street food, with a passion for good tamales and hardworking vendors. Don’t get her started!
Beth came to the IJ Clinic from the law firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, where she practiced for several years and specialized in intellectual property litigation. Prior to joining Sidley, she clerked for the Honorable Bruce M. Selya on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. Beth received her Juris Doctor magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1999. During her time at Michigan, she served as managing editor of the Michigan Law Review and interned in the general counsel’s office of the Guggenheim Museum. As an undergraduate, Beth studied comparative literature at Yale University, graduating magna cum laude in 1996.
Beth's Research & Reports
Economic Liberty
Regulatory Field
This report examines government-created barriers in industries that have traditionally provided a better way of life for the economically disenfranchised.
Economic Liberty
Regulatory Field
Want to create a job in Chicago? It is not that easy. Especially in such tough economic times, people may be shocked to discover the lengths to which the city of Chicago and the state…