Ruth Hill Bro (Chicago), Privacy and Cybersecurity Attorney, has focused her legal career on advising businesses on privacy and information management strategy, cybersecurity, global compliance, the e-workplace, and e-business. Now a consultant, Ruth started her legal career at McBride Baker & Coles (now Holland & Knight) and then spent nearly a decade at Baker & McKenzie, where she was a partner in the Chicago office and founding North American member of the firm’s Global Privacy Steering Committee. She has been featured as a speaker over 190 times and has published over 90 works, including chapters in ABA handbooks (The ABA Cybersecurity Handbook, 2013, 2018, 2022); The Internet of Things (IoT): Legal Issues, Policy, and Practical Strategies (2019); Data Breach and Encryption Handbook (2011); and The E-Business Legal Arsenal: Practitioner Agreements and Checklists (Editor, 2004); Internet in the Workplace (designed/taught national 1-day course & co-authored 1997 book, Software Publishers Assn.); Online Law (5 chapters, 1996, Addison-Wesley); Moving with Change: Electronic Signature Legislation as a Vehicle for Advancing E-Commerce (lead article, J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L., Spring, 1999; excerpted in many cyber books); and CPO Corner: Interviews with Leading Chief Privacy Officers (2005-2015 column, The SciTech Lawyer). Ruth has been recognized by numerous organizations and served on many of the top advisory/editorial boards in her field, the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education board, and the boards of two arts organizations. She is a longstanding leader in the ABA, where she is a Special Advisor (2017-2020 Co-Chair) to the Cybersecurity Legal Task Force and was its Liaison to the ABA’s Practice Forward initiative (2020-2022). She is a member of the ABA's new Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence, where she serves as ABA Entity Liaison Leader.
In the Science & Technology Law Section, she is a Sr. Advisor for the Privacy, Security, and Emerging Technology Division, Planning Committee member for the annual AI & Robotics National Institute (2019-) and IoT National Institute (2015-2023), and Liaison to the ABA Comm'n on Women in the Profession (2018-); she also served as Section Chair (2008-2009), Membership & Diversity Committee Chair (2009-2016), and E-Privacy Law Committee Founder/Chair (2000-2005). She served on the ABA's Standing Committee on Technology and Info. Systems (2 terms, 2nd as Chair, 2009-2015), SC on Continuing Legal Education (as Liaison, 2012-2015), presidential Comm'n on the Future of Legal Services (2014-2016), E-Mail Stakeholder Committee (2017-2018), SC on Disaster Response and Preparedness (2016-2017), and Board of Governors Communications Task Force (2017). Before getting her J.D. from the University of Chicago, Ruth had a successful career in major gifts fundraising at Northwestern University (B.A. in English, Political Science).