Nancy E. Paridy

About Me

Nancy Paridy, JD, LLM, is an executive who brings diverse experience and insights as President and Chief Administrative Officer, a role she has held since Sept. 2021.

An attorney by training, she established the organization’s Office of the General Counsel in 1995. Since then, she has taken on roles of increasing complexity and responsibility. As President and Chief Administrative Officer, she oversees all legal matters; corporate compliance; facility and food service operations; government and community affairs; and board relations. Additionally, for 10 years, she oversaw human resources for the organization. 

Nancy served as an integral member of the executive team charged with bringing to life Shirley Ryan AbilityLab’s $550 million, 1.2 million square foot facility. The facility opened in 2017 as the first-ever translational research rehabilitation hospital, where physicians, scientists, innovators, technologists and clinicians work together in the same space, surrounding patients, discovering novel approaches and applying (or “translating”) research in real time. 

Nancy’s leadership in health care and law has been honored through myriad awards. For 2025 and 2024, she was named to the Chicago Titan 100, which recognizes visionary leaders who inspire the Chicago business community. In 2020, the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer announced Nancy as a recipient of the Salute! Women in Law award, recognizing her leadership and commitment to advancing other women in the profession. In 2018, she received the Top Women Lawyers in Leadership Award from the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. This honor recognizes elite women lawyers who have created growth in their field and fostered new pathways through mentoring.

In addition to her work at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Nancy writes and lectures about health care law, and serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. She also serves as Co-chair of the Georgetown University School of Health Board of Strategic Advisors. Furthermore, in 2019 she was named the first woman Chair of the Loyola Academy Board of Trustees. 

Prior to joining Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in 1995, Nancy was a Partner at Dykema and practiced law at Nixon Peabody LLP in the areas of litigation and corporate health care. 

She earned her BA in History from Western Illinois University, her JD from Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Institute of Technology, and her Master of Laws (LLM) in Health Law from the Loyola University School of Law.