Best Practices for Managing Attorney Burnout

Dr. Ilona Salmons

Dr. Ilona Salmons is a psychotherapist and leadership consultant who works with high-achieving legal professionals and organizations to promote mental wellness in the workplace. A former HR Manager, Ilona understands the importance of improving employee well-being in order to achieve and maintain a high-performance work culture. She is passionate about creating workplaces where attorneys can thrive.

Ilona received her B.A. in Psychology from UCLA and her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University. She obtained her Doctorate in Organizational Leadership at Pepperdine, where she focused her research on the legal profession and published her dissertation, Best Practices for Managing Burnout in Attorneys. Ilona has a private practice in Los Angeles and is a California state-qualified professor with the Los Angeles Community College District, where she teaches Psychology and Professional Development courses.

Jacki Santana

Jacki Santana is Associate General Counsel, Platform & Technology at Snap Inc. She advises clients in commercial transactions and negotiates agreements across Snap's commercial activities, with a focus on platform partnerships, IP licensing, and SaaS agreements. She also serves on Snap Legal's Pro Bono Committee. Before joining Snap, Jacki worked as in-house counsel for Liberty Mutual Insurance Group as well as a privately held cross-channel marketing software and services company. Jacki earned her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and received her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law. 

Varty Hindoyan

Varty Hindoyan serves as Associate General Counsel for the Brands and Marketing legal team at Meta (formerly known as Facebook). She supports marketing teams across the globe in the development and execution of Meta’s consumer marketing initiatives, providing strategic advice on advertising, intellectual property, privacy, and related regulatory matters. She has been with the company for nearly two years and was part of the legal team that shepherded the company through the name change from Facebook to Meta. Varty is a former litigator turned marketing and intellectual property transactional lawyer. She began her career as a litigator at the Century City offices of O’Melveny & Myers. From there, she went on to work at a boutique and mid-size law firm before transitioning to corporate work as in-house counsel at Disney and then Meta. She also currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Young Lawyers Committee of the Armenian Bar Association.

Nada Shamonki

Nada Shamonki is Special Counsel at Mintz.  Nada’s practice encompasses all aspects of complex commercial litigation and counseling, including contract-related disputes, labor and employment issues, real estate disputes, unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets, trademark and copyright cases, insurance coverage, and finance-related matters.

Nada has extensive experience representing clients in all stages of state and federal commercial litigation, as well as with alternative dispute resolution, including mediation and arbitration. She manages disputes from inception through appeal and specializes in complex commercial problem solving and risk assessment and mitigation with a focus on achieving effective and efficient resolutions to complex legal and business problems.