Beth McCormack

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Beth McCormack Discreet counsel for complex, high-stakes divorce. More than three decades protecting families, privacy, and what you built. Equity Partner, Beermann LLP.

“We’re staying together for the kids.”I have heard some version of that sentence for decades.Sometimes staying together ...
10/14/2026

“We’re staying together for the kids.”

I have heard some version of that sentence for decades.

Sometimes staying together is absolutely the right choice for a family. But children are remarkably good observers. They notice the silence at dinner. The separate lives. The tension in the room that nobody explains.

An intact household and a peaceful household are not always the same thing.

The question is not whether children would prefer their parents to remain together. Of course many would. The harder question is what they are experiencing while the adults try to preserve the appearance of togetherness.

Children do not need a perfect family.

They need a family in which the adults are paying attention to what the children are actually living through.

I'm honored to be included in Lawdragon's 2027 list of 500 Leading Family Lawyers.Lawdragon recognizes family law attorn...
10/12/2026

I'm honored to be included in Lawdragon's 2027 list of 500 Leading Family Lawyers.

Lawdragon recognizes family law attorneys across the country for their work in complex legal matters. To be included in this group is a recognition I am genuinely grateful for.

I'm especially proud that nine of my colleagues at Beermann LLP are being recognized as well. I know the experience, dedication, and judgment they bring to their work, and it's wonderful to see that acknowledged.

After more than three decades practicing family law, I still don't take for granted what it means when someone puts their trust in me. Whether we're discussing their children, a business they've spent years building, or what life will look like after divorce, these decisions matter.

I'm grateful for the recognition, but my clients are the reason I love what I do.

10/08/2026

I became a lawyer because of a woman who didn’t think she was experiencing domestic violence.

“He never hit me.”

But I could see the control. What she could wear. Where she could go. What she could do. Slowly, I began to understand something that would shape my career: domestic violence does not always leave a bruise.

It is often about power and control.

That experience led me to law school, then to representing survivors seeking orders of protection, and later to helping establish a domestic violence unit as a prosecutor.
For a long time, I thought that by this point in my career, we would have made far more progress.

Instead, I find myself feeling called back to the work that brought me here in the first place.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It feels like the right time to begin sharing more of this part of my story, what I have learned, and why this work remains so deeply personal to me.

There is much more to come.

Ten years from separation to final decree sounds like a divorce that went terribly wrong.But time is not always evidence...
10/06/2026

Ten years from separation to final decree sounds like a divorce that went terribly wrong.

But time is not always evidence of dysfunction.

In a complex divorce, especially one involving significant assets, business interests, investment holdings, or privacy concerns, speed is not necessarily the goal. Sometimes the smarter choice is to let the financial picture become clear, understand what is actually at stake, and choose a process that gives the family the time and attention the case requires.

For families with substantial complexity, there can also be value in resolving issues outside an already crowded public court calendar. Privacy, continuity, and the ability to work through complicated financial questions deliberately can matter as much as speed.

A long divorce is not automatically a failed divorce.

Sometimes taking longer is what allows people to get it right.

There is a reason I became a family law attorney. It was domestic violence. Early in my career, I worked with survivors ...
10/01/2026

There is a reason I became a family law attorney.

It was domestic violence.

Early in my career, I worked with survivors who were trying to leave relationships where fear, control, and abuse had become part of daily life. That work shaped me as a lawyer, and more than three decades later, it still shapes how I listen to people and how I approach this work.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Throughout the month, I’ll be sharing a series of videos about my early work with survivors, what those experiences taught me, and why this issue has remained so important to me throughout my career.

Family law is about parenting time/decisions, dividing assets , setting support and the best strategy to get that figured out thoughtfully and comprehensively. But often, before any of that, it is about helping someone find a safe path forward.

My strength is my ability to listen. That’s sometimes all someone needs. I’m here for any or all of it.

Some evenings stay with you long after they end. Last Thursday I had the privilege of supporting Rainbows for All Childr...
09/30/2026

Some evenings stay with you long after they end.

Last Thursday I had the privilege of supporting Rainbows for All Children at their EmpowHER event by being a sponsor and taking many guests.

I looked around the room and felt so humbled. Women from every kind of industry, each one accomplished in her own right, all there to learn from one another and lift each other up. The conversations were honest, the energy was contagious, and I walked out feeling more connected than when I came in.

The highlight for me was watching my dear friend Susan Guthrie deliver the keynote. Her talk, "Say the Wild Thing Out Loud: Designing the Next Chapter of Your Life with Intention," moved me more than I expected. Seeing someone I love and admire command a room like that is a gift.

Susan asked us all to say our "wild thing" out loud and to put it in notes in our phone. I'm excited to see who does what with their "wild thing" when we reconvene next year!

Thank you to Rainbows for bringing us together, and for everything you do for grieving children and their families.

His business is worth millions on paper. The law says she can't touch most of it.That is where the real work begins.Weal...
09/24/2026

His business is worth millions on paper. The law says she can't touch most of it.
That is where the real work begins.

Wealth held in trusts, shielded by partnership structures, moved into entities designed to keep it off the marital balance sheet. It happens in complex divorces constantly. The Paulson case made headlines because billions were allegedly structured into trusts to place them beyond reach. That was a $4.7 billion divorce that took five years to resolve.

Most cases are not that size. But the pattern is the same. The value is real. The access is blocked. And what the law calls for on its face and what a strategic, skilled negotiator can coordinate in the room are two very different things.

That room is where experience changes everything. Tracing assets back through trust transfers. Challenging whether control was truly relinquished. Building the case that what looks untouchable was used as marital property all along. None of that shows up on a balance sheet. All of it shows up in the outcome.

In a complex asset divorce, you do not just need an attorney who knows the law. You need one with the skills and experience to build the settlement that actually works. That is what I do.

The number on paper is rarely the number in the room.

Somewhere along the way, people started to think that an aggressive attorney was a skilled attorney.People ask me this a...
09/23/2026

Somewhere along the way, people started to think that an aggressive attorney was a skilled attorney.

People ask me this all the time. Don’t I need the toughest, most combative lawyer I can find? Don’t I need someone to fight for me?

I get it. You're scared and mean feels like it might protect you.

It won't.

An aggressive lawyer who picks a fight over everything, who sends the nasty emails and texts to opposing counsel, who files every motion possible, that attorney is not fighting for you. They're just fighting, and you're the one writing the checks while your case drags on for months longer than it had to.

The lawyers who get the best results are rarely the loudest ones in the room. They know when to push and when pushing costs you more than it gains.

Mean doesn't mean good. It just means you're mean.

Smart and strategic is everything.

A business owner can "win" the divorce and still lose the company.That is not a worst-case scenario. It is what happens ...
09/17/2026

A business owner can "win" the divorce and still lose the company.

That is not a worst-case scenario. It is what happens when the corporate documents were never built with this in mind.

You spent years building a business. Hiring the right people. Structuring ownership carefully. Protecting it from competitors, from lawsuits, from market downturns. But most business owners never think to protect the company from a divorce, because it does not feel like a business risk. It feels like a personal one.

It is both.

A buy-sell agreement signed years ago that never planned for a divorcing owner. A valuation nobody has revisited since the company was a fraction of what it is worth today. An ownership structure built on the assumption that every partner's marriage lasts forever. Any one of these can quietly determine the outcome of a case before anyone sits down to negotiate.

The business owners who come through this with the company intact are almost always the ones who looked at these documents early, with the right team around them, before a filing turned the paperwork into evidence.

You built it. Protect it before you have to.

I have seen people spend months fighting over a coffee maker. Or a w**d whacker. Or the television set. So many negotiat...
09/16/2026

I have seen people spend months fighting over a coffee maker. Or a w**d whacker. Or the television set. So many negotiations over television sets.

None of these fights are really about the item. It is not about what they cost or what they are worth. It is about wanting that feeling of having "won" something in a process that had already taken almost everything else they thought they controlled.

The coffee maker is never actually about the coffee maker.

For many of my clients, it is not even about the house, because there are three other homes in the portfolio. It is not about the art on the wall, because both sides could replace it tomorrow. Feeling unheard. Feeling erased. Wanting to walk away with proof that something was actually yours.

The couples who move through this fastest are the ones who can name what they are really fighting for, out loud, early. Not the house. Not the coffee maker. The thing underneath it.

You end up fighting about things that were never really about money.

Address

161 N Clark Street, Suite 3000
Chicago, IL
60601

Telephone

+13129535114

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