Her mother Rose Anna Applebaum Cooper was from Bessarabia. Appointed to the Armed Services Board in 1972, she retired in 1995. She has been awarded many honors, including the D.C. Bar Association Beatrice Rosenberg Award for outstan- ding Government service, the George Washington University Law Alumni Association Fulbright Award for public service, the Distinguished Alumni Award from George Washington University, the"Star of the Bar" award by theDistrict of Columbia Women's Bar Association in 2002, and most recently was the first recipient of the American Bar Association Public Contract Law Section Fellows Spirit of Leadership award. The Public Contract Law Section of the American Bar Association created an annual Ruth C. Burg Luncheon honoring Women in Government Contracting and open to all. She is an acknowledged expert in complex cost accounting and major construction issues. She was founding president of a chapter of B'nai B'rith Women. She served as International President of Phi Sigma Sigma Fraternity. She served on the Board of Advisors of the Federal Contract Reports and on the Court of Federal Claims Advisory Council and is presently a member of their Friends of the Court. Her major bar activities have been with the American Bar Association, where she is a Past Chair (1984-1985) and a Fellow of thePublic Contract Law Section, a life Fellow of the American Bar Association Foundation.