Ruark W.

Chick

Position: Chief Information Officer
Office: Baton Rouge

Ruark William Chick is the firm’s chief information officer and serves on the E-Discovery Committee.

Ruark directs Jones Walker’s 30-member information technology department, overseeing and managing all aspects of the firm's technology-related initiatives. He ensures that the implemented technology enables the firm and attorneys to serve client needs, and oversees the development and implementation of procedures and systems that efficiently and effectively promote the firm's business and technological plans.

Since Hurricane Katrina, Ruark and his team have instituted a new disaster recovery and business continuity site for Jones Walker. By moving all of the firm's back-up servers to Miamisburg, Ohio — geographically, one of the country's safest cities — all of the firm's data will remain safe in case of an emergency. He and his team have also developed a practice support group that supports our litigation attorneys when working with e-discovery and complex technical legal matters. The IT department has also decreased firm and client expense by implementing technology such as virtualization and various extranets.

Ruark serves on green team, an in-house committee aimed at helping the firm conserve resources and focus its recycling efforts. He serves on the board of directors of the Louisiana Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross and also donates his time to many other organizations. Prior to entering the field of information technology, he worked as a mathematics teacher in middle and high schools in South Carolina and Louisiana. In July 2009, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal appointed Ruark to the Louisiana Information Technology Advisory Board, on which he serves an at-large member.