Streeterville isn't just a neighborhood—it's Chicago's medical epicenter, where Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Lurie Children's Hospital, and the Feinberg School of Medicine create a community of physicians and executives whose compensation packages are as complex as the surgeries they perform.
The Streeterville Landscape
Bounded by Lake Michigan to the east and the Magnificent Mile to the west, Streeterville combines world-class medical institutions with luxury lakefront living. Navy Pier, the River Esplanade, and Ohio Street Beach define the lifestyle. The high-rises along Lake Shore Drive—840 N. LSD, 600 N. LSD, 680 N. LSD—house many of the physicians and executives who walk to work at Northwestern Medicine's campus.
This concentration creates divorce cases unlike any other Chicago neighborhood. The marital estate typically includes:
- Complex physician compensation with RVU bonuses, call stipends, and partnership interests
- Luxury condominiums valued from $500K to $10M+ with substantial assessments
- Medical practice ownership requiring enterprise vs. personal goodwill analysis
- Substantial retirement portfolios accumulated over long medical careers
Understanding Physician Compensation Structures
I've handled enough physician divorces to know that the W-2 rarely tells the full story. Northwestern Medicine alone employs over 4,400 physicians across the system, and their compensation packages share common structures that directly impact divorce calculations.
Academic Physician Compensation
Academic physicians at Northwestern receive structured salaries based on specialty and professorial rank. The ranges are substantial:
- Internal medicine faculty: $170,000 – $275,000
- Surgical specialties: $250,000 – $450,000+
- Subspecialists (cardiology, GI): Often exceeding $500,000
RVU-BASED COMPENSATION
Most physician salaries include productivity bonuses tied to Relative Value Units (RVUs). Under this model, a physician's clinical work is quantified and multiplied by a conversion factor, ensuring compensation is "payer-neutral" across different insurance reimbursements. This variable component can add 20-40% to base salary—and it's fully marital income.
Call Pay and Stipends
On-call compensation varies dramatically by specialty. General surgeons typically earn $400–$2,000 per call shift. For a physician taking call multiple times weekly, annual call pay can exceed $50,000—income that must be included in support calculations.
Hospital-Employed vs. Private Practice
Hospital-employed physicians often start with higher base salaries because the health system subsidizes compensation from its broader revenue pool. Private practice physicians in lucrative specialties may earn more overall but face greater income volatility—a critical distinction when calculating maintenance.
Private practice "eat-what-you-kill" compensation means income fluctuates with patient volume, surgical case counts, and referral patterns. Courts typically average 3-5 years of income when one year would be misleading.
Medical Practice Valuation: Enterprise vs. Personal Goodwill
When a spouse owns a medical practice—whether a surgical group, cardiology practice, or subspecialty clinic—valuation becomes the most contested issue in the divorce.
Illinois distinguishes between two types of goodwill:
Personal Goodwill (Non-Marital)
The physician's individual reputation, skills, and patient relationships. This value disappears if the doctor leaves the practice.
Enterprise Goodwill (Marital)
Value inherent in the practice itself: the brand name, location, established patient base, contracts, and trained staff. This transfers to a buyer.
The non-owner spouse will argue the practice has substantial enterprise goodwill and therefore significant marital value. The physician spouse will argue patients come specifically for their expertise—pure personal goodwill that shouldn't be divided.
Forensic business valuators use the Multi-Attribute Utility Model (MUM) to allocate goodwill between these buckets. They score attributes like referral patterns, key person dependence, and brand recognition to scientifically determine what percentage is divisible.
HIPAA PROTECTION
Patient confidentiality remains protected during divorce discovery. Forensic accountants review anonymized financial summaries—never patient charts. Practice income statements and balance sheets are fair game; identifiable patient information is not.
Luxury Condo Division: Lake Shore Drive Realities
Streeterville condominiums represent some of Chicago's most valuable residential real estate. Buildings like 840 N. Lake Shore Drive offer 27 stories of floor-to-ceiling windows, gourmet kitchens, and amenities that command premiums. 600 N. Lake Shore Drive (47 stories, built 2008) features units starting in the high $500Ks and reaching seven figures.
Valuation Challenges
Unlike suburban homes with comparable sales on every block, luxury high-rise units are unique. Views, floor level, exposure, and recent renovations create wide valuation disparities. A north-facing unit on the 40th floor commands a substantial premium over an identical floor plan facing west on the 15th floor.
Courts rely on independent appraisers experienced with Chicago's luxury market. Standard residential appraisers miss the nuances that affect seven-figure valuations.
The Assessment Reality
Monthly assessments in full-service buildings often exceed $2,000—effectively a second mortgage. When calculating whether a spouse can afford to keep the marital residence, these carrying costs are as important as the mortgage payment itself.
Special assessments for facade work, elevator modernization, or HVAC replacement can add tens of thousands in unexpected costs. Smart divorce attorneys subpoena the last 24 months of condo board meeting minutes to identify looming capital expenditures.
Retirement and Investment Asset Division
Streeterville physicians accumulate substantial retirement assets over long careers. Multiple accounts are common:
- 403(b) plans through hospital employment
- 401(k) accounts from previous positions or group practices
- Defined benefit pensions (increasingly rare but still present)
- Deferred compensation arrangements common at executive levels
- Traditional and Roth IRAs
Illinois law under 750 ILCS 5/503 treats only contributions made during the marriage as marital property. Pre-marital contributions and their growth remain separate—but tracing that separation across decades of statements requires forensic expertise.
Dividing retirement accounts requires Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDROs) that comply with each plan's specific requirements. Hospital pension plans have unique provisions that generic QDRO language may not address.
Illinois Equitable Distribution Principles
Illinois is an equitable distribution state—"fair" doesn't mean 50/50. The court considers multiple factors:
- Each spouse's income and property
- Duration of the marriage
- Contributions to the other's career advancement
- Standard of living established during marriage
- Contributions as homemaker
For Streeterville physicians, this often means acknowledging that one spouse's support—managing the household, raising children, entertaining for practice development—enabled the other's career success.
Maintenance (Spousal Support)
Illinois statutory guidelines calculate maintenance as 33.3% of the payor's net income minus 25% of the recipient's net income, capped at 40% of combined income. But this formula applies only when combined gross income falls below $500,000.
Most Streeterville physician households exceed this threshold, granting courts broad discretion. The surgeon earning $750,000 whose spouse left a career to support the family won't see maintenance calculated by formula—fourteen statutory factors come into play.
Privacy and Confidentiality Strategies
For physicians whose hospital privileges depend on professional standing, or executives whose business relationships rely on personal reputation, divorce confidentiality matters deeply.
Illinois divorce records are presumptively public. However, several strategies limit exposure:
- Settlement before trial keeps details entirely out of court proceedings
- Incorporating agreements by reference prevents financial terms from appearing in public filings
- Motions to seal specific documents (financial affidavits, practice valuations) can succeed when narrowly tailored
- Mediation and collaborative divorce keep negotiations confidential by design
Privacy Reality Check
Being "wealthy" or "embarrassed" isn't sufficient grounds to seal an entire file. But protecting specific business valuations, executive compensation details, or practice financial records from public access is often achievable with proper legal strategy.
Next Steps for Streeterville Professionals
Divorce in Streeterville requires counsel who understands both Illinois matrimonial law and the specific financial realities of medical practice ownership and physician compensation. From RVU bonus structures to enterprise goodwill allocation, from QDRO requirements for hospital pensions to luxury condo valuations, the right legal partner navigates complexity others miss.
The lakefront views will remain. The walk to Northwestern will continue. What changes is the legal structure surrounding your assets, your practice, and your future financial security.