Renee Hatcher

Professor Renee Hatcher is a Visiting Associate Professor of Clinical Law and the Director of the Small Business and Community Economic Development Clinic. Professor Hatcher is visiting GW from University of Illinois Chicago School of Law (UIC Law), where she is an assistant professor of law and the Director of the Community Enterprise & Solidarity Economy Clinic. Since March 2024, Professor Hatcher has also served as the Co-Director of Chicago Community Wealth Building Ecosystem at CUPPA’s Center on Urban Economic Development. Professor Hatcher has significant experience providing legal support to worker centers, worker cooperatives, and community-based initiatives with an eye toward empowering workers and community residents. Her legal advocacy and research focus on legal and non-legal strategies such as solidarity economy to build power and create equitable development practices and healthy communities predominantly in Black, low-income neighborhoods.

Professor Hatcher is an advisory member of the Federal Reserve Board Community Leaders Forum, Law 4 Black Lives, and the Detroit Justice Center. Prior to joining UIC Law, Professor Hatcher taught in the Community Development Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law and served a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Texas-Austin's Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis. Previously, Professor Hatcher served as a staff attorney and project director for the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (CLC), where she directed a community development law project providing legal services to entrepreneurs, community-based organizations, and individuals interested in expunging their criminal history to create better opportunities for local marginalized communities.

Her previous work experience also includes time with the ACLU's National School-Prison-Pipeline Project, the International Network for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and Congressional Office of the 15th District of New York.

Professor Hatcher holds a BA from Indiana University- Bloomington and a JD from New York University School of Law.