2014 Alumni Award Honorees

Nancy Paridy ’83

Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Government Affairs, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago

Nancy E. Paridy ’83 is the senior vice president, general counsel and government affairs for the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the leading rehabilitation hospital in the United States. She first joined RIC in 1995 and within six months became its general counsel. During her tenure, she has also been in charge of human resources, managed care, corporate compliance and ethics. As a member of the executive management team at RIC, Paridy oversees and directs the Institute's broad range of legal services in the areas of health law, litigation, employment law, joint venture relationships and management agreements, tax, fraud and abuse, regulatory interpretation and guidance, intellectual property, research, operations, government relations, corporate compliance and corporate governance. She also oversees the Institute's insurance needs and its government as well as community affairs and board functions. Prior to joining RIC, Paridy practiced law in the areas of litigation and corporate healthcare, first as an associate at Ungaretti & Harris and later as an associate and partner at what is now Dykmea Gossett PLLC. She has served on the board of directors for the Eleanor Foundation, on the advisory board for the Loyola University Health Law Program and on the board of directors for the Remains Theater. Paridy has served as a guest lecturer and mentor at Chicago-Kent and was the class correspondent for the Class of 1983 for five years. She has also been active in hiring Chicago-Kent students as interns at RIC.

Paridy has been recognized for her outstanding leadership by receiving the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award, Alumni Achievement Award and Outstanding History Alumna Award from Western Illinois University. She also received the inaugural Top General Counsel award in 2011 from First Chair and was named one of the top general counsel in Ethisphere Magazine’s “Attorneys Who Matter” in 2012.

Stephen B. Ruben ’73

Managing Partner, Ruben/Huggins

Stephen B. Ruben ’73 is the managing director of Ruben/Huggins, a family law firm in San Francisco, California. One of the top family law lawyers in the state, he focuses his practice on complex family law litigation, including high net worth divorce cases, financial issues, spousal and child support, high conflict custody disputes and dissolution, including non-marital and domestic partnerships. He is a regularly featured radio guest on “Your Legal Rights,” a nationally syndicated program on San Francisco’s public radio station KALW and has been featured on local television and radio news programs, speaking about a variety of family law court rulings, including professional ethical considerations regarding adoptions, child abandonment and paternity cases.

Ruben has made significant contributions to the field of family law in California, serving on a task force that was responsible for conducting a comprehensive review of family law proceedings in the state and addressing the lack of fairness and justice for family law litigants.  He helped author the first Domestic Partnership Act in California and has worked with legislators to draft statewide reforms in the area of family law. Ruben served for more than ten years as Judge Pro Tem for the Unified Family Court of San Francisco and is the chief arbitrator with the San Francisco Bar Association, resolving attorney fee disputes on family law matters. Ruben has also served as president of the Lawyers' Club of San Francisco Inn of Court, was a member of the board of the Bay Area Legal Foundation, and was a founding member of the California Bar Association Conference of Delegates (the lobbying arm of the California Bar), later serving as vice chair.

Hon. Michael J. Gallagher ‘78

Owner, Michael J. Gallagher Mediation Services, LLC

Hon. Michael J. Gallagher ’78 began his career as an attorney with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission before serving as a law clerk to Justice William G. Clark of the Illinois Supreme Court. He was later a partner at the law firm Cassiday Schade, focusing on medical malpractice, construction accident litigation and personal injury defense. Gallagher became a circuit court judge in Cook County in 1988 and was named to the Illinois Appellate Court in 1996. He served on the mediation committee of the Illinois Appellate Court, First District and was the chairman of the executive committee from 2009 to 2010. For more than a decade, Gallagher taught at the new Judges’ Seminar for the State of Illinois and in 2007, he was the chair of the Illinois Judicial Academy, the preeminent training program for judges in Illinois. He also served as an adjunct faculty member at John Marshall Law School from 2006 to 2012.

 After retiring from the Appellate Court in 2011, Gallagher launched Michael J. Gallagher Mediation Services LLC, providing mediation, arbitration and appellate consulting services. He is a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review Alumni Board and the Senior Partner Council, and served on the 125^th Anniversary Gala Host Committee. In addition to being a regular volunteer for Chicago-Kent, Gallagher received the law school’s Professional Achievement Award in 2001.

Lindsay K.H. Anderson ’05

Counsel, McGuireWoods

Lindsay K. H. Anderson ’05 is currently counsel at McGuireWoods and McGuireWoods Consulting, specializing in campaign finance, education, tax, local government, transportation and pension issues. She is also the chair of the Board of Trustees of the State Universities Retirement System of Illinois, a system with over $16 billion in system market assets that provides annuities to more than 200,000 members, faculty and nonacademic employees of state universities and colleges, community colleges, scientific surveys, and other related agencies.  She also serves as chair of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, where she is responsible for planning and coordinating Illinois systems of higher education. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn also appointed Anderson to serve as chair of the Illinois Campaign Finance Reform Task Force to conduct a thorough review of and make recommendations to the Governor and Illinois General Assembly regarding implementation of campaign finance reform legislation in Illinois.

Previously, Anderson served as Governor Quinn’s legislative director and senior advisor, joining his administration after practicing law at McGuireWoods from 2007 to 2009. She was responsible for the direct oversight and review of all legislation pending before the Illinois General Assembly and its committees and commissions. She advised the governor on pending legislation, coordinated and developed implementation of the administration’s legislative programs, oversaw state agency liaisons and reviewed the legislative programs of all the state agencies falling under the governor. Her previous experience also includes serving as assistant counsel to Michael Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives.

Anderson served on the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law Alumni Board of Directors from 2011-2013 and serves as an alumnae mentor for the Society of Women in Law.

Timothy J. Ritchey ’05

Partner, Peck Bloom LLC

Timothy J. Ritchey ’05 is a partner at Peck Bloom, LLC, focusing on estate and trust litigation, elder law and guardianship. He serves as a guardian ad litem before the Probate Court and has been appointed special assistant attorney general in numerous matters to represent the State of Illinois’ interests in actions relating to Illinois healthcare and disability law. Earlier this year, Ritchey drafted legislation and testified as an expert before the Illinois Senate on an amendment to the Illinois Probate Act regarding elder abuse and financial exploitation.

Ritchey has served as vice president of the board of the Center for Disability and Elder Law and as chair of the Probate Practice Committee of the Chicago Bar Association. He is also actively involved with Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, the Small Business Advisory Council, the Naperville and Lisle Chambers of Commerce and the 100 Club. Ritchey was a founding member of the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law Young Alumni Council and served as its president from 2012 to 2014. This fall, he was selected by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company as one of 40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty to Watch and as one of the Best Professionals Under Forty by Suburban Life in the western suburbs.

Founded in 1996, McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP now has more than 80 attorneys in Illinois, California and North Carolina. MBHB’s practice areas encompass all aspects of intellectual property law and attorneys have practice experience in a myriad of technology areas. They are experienced in the procurement, licensing, enforcement and defense of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and unfair competition actions in a number of technological disciplines and product categories, including biotechnology, business methods, chemical, electrical, mechanical and materials, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics, software and telecommunications. MBHB prides itself on the legal and scientific credentials of its professionals. One hundred percent of the firm’s attorneys and technical advisors hold science or engineering degrees and, of those, nearly half hold PhDs or other advanced degrees.

MBHB and IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law have an extensive and enduring relationship, with a significant number of current and former MBHB attorneys being Chicago-Kent alumni. Several MBHB attorneys have taught courses at Chicago-Kent, including several who teach regularly as adjunct professors. MBHB has also sponsored numerous programs and events at Chicago-Kent, including the annual Supreme Court IP Review, and firm attorneys have served as panelists, moderators, presenters and speakers for many other Chicago-Kent programs and events over the years.