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Nancy Paridy, CAS 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient. (Courtesy Photo)
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Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago VP Named WIU Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumna

October 14, 2011

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MACOMB, IL – Nancy Paridy, J.D., LL.M., senior vice president, general counsel and government affairs/corporate secretary of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), has been named the College of Arts and Sciences 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient at her undergraduate alma mater, Western Illinois University–Macomb.

She will be honored at the College of Arts and Sciences Fifth Annual Scholarship Dinner Saturday, Oct. 29 in the University Union Lamoine Room.

Paridy was a history major and a member of Western's Centennial Honors College, graduating, in three years, with a Bachelor of Arts degree and with honors in 1980. She completed legal training at Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1983 at the age of 22, and was admitted to practice law in Illinois that same year. Paridy began her legal career at Ungaretti and Harris LLP, where she worked on the controversial case of Green v. Cook County Hospital. From 1985–1995, Paridy worked for Dykema, Gossett PLLC.

She earned her LL.M. (Master of Laws degree) in health law from Loyola University Law School. In 1995, Paridy joined RIC, which U.S. News & World Reports has listed as the "No. 1 Rehabilitation Hospital in America" each year since 1991. An RIC executive team member, Paridy directs the institute's litigation, employment law, joint venture relationships and management agreements, tax, fraud and abuse, regulatory interpretation and guidance, intellectual property, research, operations, governments, corporate compliance and corporate governance legal services.

Paridy is affiliated with the American Bar Association Litigation Section, the Chicago Bar Association, Illinois State Bar Association, the Illinois Association of Healthcare Attorneys and Illinois Hospital Association Advocacy Council. She also sits on the Alliance for the Advancement of Not-for-Profit Health Care and the Corporate Counsel Roundtable. She is a member of the Trial Bar for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the United States of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Paridy, who has lectured and written extensively on health care, received Western Illinois University's Alumni Achievement Award (1995), the Outstanding History Alumnus Award (1991) and was the keynote speaker for Western's 2010 Pre-Law Symposium.

First Chair, a legal organization, most recently named her "Top General Counsel." Nightingale's Healthcare News, a professional newsletter, named Paridy as one of the top 10 "Outstanding In-house Counsels to Hospitals/Healthcare systems."

Paridy joins three previous alumni who have received the WIU College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award. They include Dr. Norman C. Teeter (B.S. '67, psychology), the late Roland P. Burke (B.A. '68, political science) and Richard W. Crain (B.A. '56, chemistry).

Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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