Our Team
A connective force that aligns people and places with inclusion—turning strategy and training into one clear, compelling impact.
Sandra S. Yamate
Chief Executive Officer
Sandra.Yamate@theIILP.com
Sandra S. Yamate is the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession (“IILP”). Sandra is IILP’s subject-matter expert on inclusion and is responsible for its research and programming.
After practicing law for ten years, Sandra served as the Executive Director of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms and as the Director of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession.
Sandra has long been active in a variety of charitable causes. Currently, Sandra is President of the National Association of Women Lawyers (“NAWL”) and is that organization’s first President who is Asian American in its 125+ year history. She recently completed 9-1/2 years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Judicial College (“NJC”), the oldest judicial education organization in the country.
Sandra earned her JD from Harvard Law School and an AB in Political Science (cum laude) and History (magna cum laude) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Sandra has written and spoken extensively on community engagement, diversity and inclusion, cultural competency, and multicultural issues.
Sandra and her husband reside in Chicago with their two dogs, Cashew and Filbert.
Linda Chanow
Chief Operating Officer
Linda.Chanow@theIILP.com
Linda Chanow is a non-profit executive, professor, lawyer and nationally- recognized authority on women, especially women lawyers. For more than 25 years, Linda has been researching, writing, and speaking on issues that impact the legal profession including leadership, inclusion, allyship, growth mindset, resilience, and flexible work programs. Her most recent publication is In Their Own Words: Experienced Women Explain Why They Are Leaving Their Firms and the Profession (ABA 2021). Linda was selected to serve on two Presidential Initiatives for the American Bar Association (Achieving Long-Term Careers for Women in Law and Toolkit for Gender Equity in Partner Compensation) and as a Team Advisor for Diversity Lab’s first Women in Law Hackathon. She was elected to the board of the Women’s Bar Association of D.C. and appointed as a co-chair of its Initiative on Advancement and Retention of Women
The Texas Minority Counsel Program honored Linda with its Lifetime Achievement Award, Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association presented her with its Advancement of Women Award, and Lawdragon named her one of the 100 Leading Legal Consultants and Strategists for three consecutive years. Linda began her legal career as a commercial litigator at WilmerHale in Washington, D.C. after graduating magna cum laude from American University’s Washington College of Law in 1999. A recent empty nester, Linda and her husband reside in Austin, Texas.
Jennifer A. Jackson
Program Manager
Jennifer.Jackson@theIILP.com
Jennifer A. Jackson is the Program Manager at IILP. She is an Inclusion professional with over 18 years of experience in the legal industry. She provides Inclusion and management services to law firms, membership organizations and consulting firms. Jennifer’s skills include program development and management, workplace assessments, statistical analysis, budget management and event planning. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Jennifer honed her skills at a mid-sized law firm in Chicago.
Before working with professionals the legal industry, Jennifer was the Administrative Director at Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, a management consultant at Ernst & Young LLP, and a systems engineer at Ford Motor Company. As a Career Pivot Catalyst, she coached professionals who needed to change career paths, but didn’t know how to efficiently navigate the personal, professional and financial hurdles that stood in the way.
Jennifer earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also earned an MBA in Strategy, Marketing and Arts Administration from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
Nimesh Patel
Senior Advisor
Nimesh Patel is a senior advisor at IILP, with more than 15 years of executive level experience leading inclusion in both the private sector and the federal government. Most recently Nimesh was the Chief Inclusion Officer of an international AmLaw 50 law firm where he worked closely with firm leadership and led the firm’s global inclusion strategy and initiatives. He also served as the global head of inclusion for another prominent global AmLaw 50 law firm. During the Obama Administration, Nimesh served as the first Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with 230,000 employees worldwide. The role was a key leadership position in the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer and part of the DHS Management Directorate. Nimesh’s prior work experience also includes being an associate in the employment practice at two large international law firms, with a specialty in corporate diversity counseling. He started his career as an Honor’s Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, where his experience included serving as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section and as an assistant general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Nimesh’s numerous leadership experiences include serving as the former President of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) and the NAPABA Law Foundation, former board member of Asian Americans Advancing Justice: AAJC, and former vice chair of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.
Nishan Ardon
Marketing
nishan@elavanz.com
Nishan helps professional associations and non-profit organizations amplify their reach and impact. He has over 20 years of experience in strategic communications, marketing, systems development, stakeholder engagement, digital media and event planning and presentation, and has led diverse creative and technical initiatives and teams, building brands and engaging audiences. Throughout his career, Nishan has served in various levels and roles in organizations focused on positive change and the greater social good.
Nishan launched Elavanz, a digital marketing and communications agency and currently serves as its Chief Experience Officer. Nishan served as the Director of Communications and Systems for the California Minority Counsel Program from 2008 to 2020, and as Director of Marketing, Communications, and Events for the International Research Foundation from 2000 to 2005. He has also served on the Board of Directors and as Board Chair of Youth Spirit Artworks.
Isabel Dobbs
Isabel Dobbs is an attorney admitted to practice in Pennsylvania in November 2025. She graduated from the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Duquesne University in 2025 with a concentration in Law and Computing, focusing on coding, artificial intelligence, privacy, and legal automation.
Isabel became involved with the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession during law school and continues her work with IILP following graduation. Her work centers on leveraging technology to strengthen research, advance equity within the legal profession, and expand access to legal information and justice.
Consultants
Jonathan W. Kanter,
Ph.D
Jonathan W. Kanter, Ph.D. received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Washington in 2002. Shortly afterwards he became a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, Dr. Kanter spent several years collaborating closely with members of the Black community on issues of social and political activism (including police brutality and voter rights), racism and discrimination, mental health stigma, and culturally appropriate treatments of depression. Dr. Kanter also spent several years working closely with Latino researchers and community members to develop culturally informed treatments for depression in Latino community settings for low-income Latino immigrants. Dr. Kanter also worked closely with members of the Muslim community in the United Kingdom on Islam-consistent approaches to depression treatment. His lab consisted of a multi-cultural team of committed student researchers working on individual and collective projects.
In 2013, Dr. Kanter came to the University of Washington to direct the Center for the Science of Social Connection (CSSC). As Director, he brings a wealth of experience working in the trenches with people of color and disenfranchised groups as a team member, as well as working with scholars and scientists internationally.
Dr. Kanter is regularly invited to give talks and workshops nationally and internationally on topics of interest to the Center, including anti-racism workshops which seek to help white people grow and overcome racism, workshops for therapists on how to improve psychotherapy relationships and help clients with relational problems, and behavioral treatments for depression.
Scientifically, Dr. Kanter approaches projects with a contextual behavioral science model that integrates disciplines, including evolution science, neuroscience, anthropology and psychology, within a behavioral science foundation. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Gwynne Kohl, who is also a clinical psychologist, and their 11-year-old daughter Zoe.
Karyn S. Linn
Karyn is passionate about helping non-profit organizations be their best so they can do their best. She is an association management professional in Chicago, Illinois, with over 30 years of experience working in the non-profit sector. Karyn focuses on helping organizations build capacity through strategic planning, organizational development, purposeful communications, and stakeholder engagement. She advises boards and committees in strategic planning, governance best practices, leadership development, program design, and project management. All with the goal of helping these mission-driven organizations increase their impact on the communities they serve.
Karyn spent twenty-three years working for the American Bar Association’s Division for Bar Services. She held many positions during her tenure at the ABA, the most recent being the Director of Outreach and Education. In this role, Karyn met with bar leaders around the country to discuss trends in the legal profession impacting bar associations and best practices in non-profit governance and organizational development and was a frequent speaker at bar leadership conferences. She facilitated strategic planning sessions and board retreats, met with bar leaders to brainstorm solutions to problems, and developed educational and communication strategies to keep bar leaders informed on current events and trends.
Karyn works with Chicago Association Management (CAM) to increase her ability to help mission-driven organizations. As a CAM team member, she has served as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Rotary Club of Chicago, the world’s first service club, and as administrator for the ROTARY/One Foundation and the Charitable Foundation of Rotary District 6450. She manages the day-to-day operations and helps guide leaders on how best to use their limited resources (time, treasure, and talent).
Karyn earned her BA from Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. She recently earned a certificate in Strategic Management Performance Systems from The George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. She is a member of the Association for Strategic Planning and the Association Forum and enjoys being a Girl Scout leader for her daughter’s troop.
Karyn balances her work life by getting lost in Audible books, striving to perfect her photography skills, thinking about becoming a yogi, and her favorite pastime, spending time with her husband Paul and their 14-year-old daughter.
Ellen Ostrow,
Ph.D,
PCC, CMC
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., PCC, CMC is a psychologist, certified coach, strategic talent advisor, and Founding Principal of Lawyers Life Coach LLC who brings particular expertise in coaching, training and advising lawyers and the law firms and corporations that employ them. Since starting her firm in 1998, Ellen has coached hundreds of attorneys throughout the world at all levels of experience and seniority in law firms of all sizes, corporate legal departments, government, not-for-profits and the judiciary.
EXPERTISE
The executive coaching Ellen provides to attorneys includes leadership development and effectiveness, communication and emotional intelligence, career planning and advancement, business development and work life integration. She assists lawyers in developing resilience and psychological flexibility, i.e., the capacity to be fully present and aware, in any given context, and to flexibly choose to act in a manner that will be optimally effective, authentic and aligned with values.
Ellen is particularly interested in assisting attorneys at transition points in their careers: from a time-keeper role to a leadership role, either as a law firm partner or an in-house leader; a service provider to a client manager and business generator; or a team player to a team or organizational leader.
Ellen consults with practice groups, law firms and corporate legal departments on strategic talent management, retention, promotion and inclusion. She has advised law firms and the legal departments of Fortune 500 companies regarding leadership development, optimizing attorney-client communication and collaboration, diversity and inclusion, effective management, delegation and supervision, developing mentoring and sponsorship programs and retaining and developing diverse talent. She works with law firms to design and implement effective strategies to better recruit, develop, retain and advance the lawyers and staff within the firm.
APPROACH
Ellen brings a unique understanding of the complexities of human behavior, motivation, emotion and learning, derived from her extensive training in psychological science, 30+ years of experience working with individuals and organizations to facilitate change, and 20+ years of working exclusively with attorneys and their employers. She approaches all of her work from an interdisciplinary and evidence-based model of change that includes behavioral science and positive psychology.
Ellen is particularly sought after as a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant because her evidence-based work, derived from the science of social connection, focuses on observable behavior rather than unconscious processes that are not subject to conscious influence efforts. Instead, Ellen’s work with law firms seeking to become more inclusive focuses on developing mindful awareness and enabling lawyers to create authentic connections across differences. Her humanizing approach avoids the common triggers of defensiveness that hamper the effectiveness of typical implicit-bias focused interventions.
EXPERIENCE AND CREDENTIALS
Since founding Lawyers Life Coach, Ellen has become known for her expertise in the challenges faced by women and diverse attorneys in the profession and has been invited to address numerous audiences – including the Department of Justice Canada, the Center for Legal Inclusiveness, Harvard Law School’s Women’s Leadership Summit, the Center for Women in the Law, the Latina Executive Leadership Academy, the National Bar Association, the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law’s Women Leadership & Equality Program and bar and women attorney’s groups on the national and local level throughout the US and Europe – on strategies for advancing women and diverse attorneys.
Her consultation with a law firm to become a more diverse and inclusive workplace resulted in that firm becoming one of the most honored firms for its diversity accomplishments. In addition, Ellen worked with a consulting team engaged by a judicial system to develop “A Great Place to Work.” In this capacity she conducted leadership development training, team building and provided leadership development coaching to court leaders including judges.
Ellen has also been selected as the exclusive Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF)-endorsed leadership development coach. She serves as a facilitator and coach for Diversity Lab’s On-Ramp Fellowship and OnTrack Sponsorship programs. She has been the Co-Chair of the Board of the ThirdPath Institute since its founding and has served on the District of Columbia Bar Association’s Lawyers’ Assistance Program Advisory Board as well as the DC Bar’s Board of Governors. She uses her expertise in the social and neurosciences to inform her efforts to increase resilience, satisfaction and effectiveness among legal professionals.
A frequent contributing writer for print and electronic legal media, Ellen’s articles have been published in the New York Law Journal Magazine, Perspectives, The Woman Advocate, NAWL’s The Women Lawyers’ Journal, GP Small/Solo, Trial Magazine, Lawyers Weekly USA, the Talent Think Tank Blog and many other prominent legal publications. The New York Times, the Washington Post, US News & World Report, the Legal Times, Of Counsel, Law 360 and the Careerist have quoted Ellen and her email newsletter, Beyond the Billable Hour, has been reprinted by more than 30 print and electronic publications and translated into multiple languages.
Ellen received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Rochester and her coach training from the MentorCoach ™ program, for which she has also taught, and her Professional Certified Coach certification from the International Coach Federation. She served on the faculties of three universities before starting her independent practice. She lives in suburban Washington, DC. with her husband and two cats, remotely parents her adult children in Las Vegas and Bel Air and adores her two grandchildren.
Avani Patel
Project Specialist
Avani.Patel@TheIILP.com
Avani Patel is a Project Specialist at the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession and the Supervising Senior Manager of the Illinois Court Help Program at the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts (AOIC). In her role at AOIC, she leads a team of court guides dedicated to assisting court users on state court matters in all 102 Illinois counties via phone, text message, and webmail. Her team helps with navigating court processes and court forms and answering court-related inquiries. Avani also plays a crucial role in collecting and analyzing user data and stories to identify system gaps, making recommendations to simplify and standardize court procedures and forms. As a member of the Access to Justice Division management team, she contributes to the oversight of the Illinois Courts’ statewide access to justice strategy and programs.
Before joining AOIC, Avani built a robust career in business development and legal recruitment with organizations that provide support services to the legal profession. Shortly after law school, she joined the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation (CVLS) as a supervising attorney for the Economic Issues Program, where she managed the program, represented clients in bankruptcy, family law and contract disputes, supervised interns and volunteers, and conducted trainings throughout Chicago.
In 2023, Avani was appointed by Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Theis to the Supreme Court of Illinois Committee on Equality. She currently serves as a board member of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), the president of the South Asian Bar Association (SABA) of Chicago Foundation and is a past-president of SABA Chicago. Her leadership experience includes serving four years on the SABA-DC board, serving as a former president of Women in eDiscovery’s DC chapter, and formerly co-chairing a DEI committee for the Women’s Bar Association of Washington, DC, as well as the sponsorship committee for the Chicago chapter of the Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law. Avani holds a Leading Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion certificate from Northwestern University, a JD from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, and a BBA from Loyola University Chicago.