Panelist Bios

Hon. Angela M. Ordoñez, Retired Chief Justice of the Probate and Family Court Department

Judge Angela M. Ordoñez was a Probate and Family Court judge from 2000 until 2024.  She was initially appointed by Governor Paul Cellucci as Associate Justice of the Nantucket Probate and Family Court.  In 2008, Governor Deval Patrick appointed Judge Ordoñez as Associate Justice of the Norfolk Probate and Family Court.  Judge Ordoñez served as First Justice in Nantucket and Norfolk Divisions.  During the years 2013 – 2018, Judge Ordoñez served as Chief Justice of the Probate and Family Court Department.  Thereafter, Judge Ordoñez sat in the Barnstable Probate and Family Court until her retirement.

Payal Salsburg, Partner at Laredo & Smith

Payal Salsburg is a partner at the law firm of Laredo, Smith and Kane in Boston. Her practice focuses on business litigation, white collar criminal defense, and matters before the State Ethics Commission. She is involved in a number of bar associations, and on the board of non-profit organizations. Her interest in the well-being of legal professionals arises from her own experience with burnout, divorce, and getting through cancer - all while working in a big law firm setting.

Shailini George, Suffolk University Law School, Author of The Law Student’s Guide to Doing Well and Being Well, Co-Chair SJC Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being

Shailini George is a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and is currently serving as Stetson Law School’s Distinguished Visitor in Legal Writing. Shailini is a passionate advocate for law student and lawyer well-being. Shailini teaches legal writing and a well-being and professional identity formation course, and her scholarship focuses in the areas of lawyer well-being, mindfulness, and the cognitive science of learning.  She is the author of The Law Student’s Guide to Doing Well and Being Well (Carolina Academic Press 2021), as well as law review articles on distraction and the cognitive science of learning and why law students need mindfulness training. Shailini pursues her passion for well-being through her leadership in local and national organizations which are dedicated to advancing the well-being of legal professionals, serving as the 2025 Chair of the AALS Balance and Well-Being in Legal Education Section, the co-chair of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, and the co-chair of the Legal Writing Institute’s Well-Being Committee. Shailini is the immediate past Vice President of Law Schools for the Institute for Well-Being in Law.

Dyane O’Leary, Suffolk University Law School, Director, Legal Innovation & Technology Center

Professor Dyane O’Leary is a leader at the intersection of legal practice skills, innovation, and technology. She is a professor of legal writing and directs Suffolk Law’s Legal Innovation & Technology (LIT) Center and LIT Concentration, recognized as the nation's top legal tech program by National Jurist and a Bloomberg Top 10 Law School Innovator. Author of Legal Innovation & Technology: A Practical Skills Guide for the Modern Lawyer (West Academic, 2022), Professor O’Leary focuses on technology competence in legal practice, Generative AI, legal research tools, document automation, and cybersecurity. She designed Suffolk Law’s first courses on Generative AI and modern legal practice technology and recently completed a sabbatical project entitled Disconnected Connection, which is an empirical interview-based study on the state of human interpersonal lawyering relationship skills in today’s modern technological practice. A Fastcase 50 honoree and ABA Women of Legal Tech recipient, she has held leadership roles in the AALS Section on Technology, Law & Legal Education, the Association of Legal Writing Directors, and the AI Policy Consortium of the Thomson Reuters Institute/National Center for State Courts.

Bernardo Cuadra, Deputy Chief, False Claims Division, Massachusetts Attorney General's Office

Bernardo G. Cuadra is an Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Chief of the False Claims Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. Bernardo is also a member and past Co-Chair of the AGO’s Well-Being Committee, member of SJC Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, and an adjunct professor at New England Law | Boston.

Resources