Thanks to the quick thinking of the Institute for Justice’s Clinic on Entrepreneurship in Chicago, IJ launched Shop in Place Chicago, a directory of local, essential businesses still operating throughout the Windy City. The free website meant to empower the city’s small business owners and entrepreneurs accumulated tens of thousands of views in its inaugural week, and now has nearly 400 businesses listed. “The increasing number of businesses participating makes the site more useful both to consumers and businesses,” said IJ’s Beth Kregor. Given its success, IJ’s activism team created a sister site to serve the DC area, aptly named Shop in Place DC, which currently lists over 150 businesses.

Additionally, IJ has continued to fight for increased accountability for government officials with its new Project on Immunity and Accountability. IJ has filed a number of cert petitions to the US Supreme Court in honor of this initiative, including two on behalf of families whose homes were destroyed by their local police. 

IJ also filed on behalf of James King, an innocent college student misidentified by plain-clothed police and beaten unconscious. Instead of owning their mistakes, authorities charged King with felonies to protect the officers. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving the assault on James and its aftermath, and it will consider whether to provide the government yet another tool to shield its agents from accountability.