About Ivette
Ivette Santaella built a legal career that moves between corporate legal departments and the contours of local bar life. She studied the liberal arts first, then law, then returned to graduate school for business and information technology. The sequence reflects a professional life that crosses disciplines and workplaces.
Santaella earned a B.A. in English and Art History from Fordham University in 1974. A decade later she completed a J.D. at American University in 1984. She later added an M.B.A. in Information Technology Management from the University of California, Irvine, in 1996. The combination of law and business education has echoed through the roles she has taken since.
Her corporate tenure includes in-house counsel positions at major technology firms. In 2000 she joined Sun Microsystems, Inc. in a senior corporate counsel role. She moved to Symantec Corporation in a similar capacity in 2006. Those years inside large tech companies exposed her to contract negotiation, compliance issues and the legal demands of fast-moving product and service lines.
Santaella shifted into private practice in the 2010s. She opened the Law Office of Ivette M. Santaella in 2010 and later established Santaella Legal Group in 2013. Those practices allowed her to translate in-house experience to the needs of businesses and individuals. She maintains an office under the name Santaella Legal Group, APC.
Her professional affiliations are broad and reflect both community ties and specialty interests. She has been a member of the Contra Costa County Hispanic Bar Association since 2008 and joined several local and regional groups in the following years, including the Contra Costa Bar Association, La Raza Bar Association and the Earl Warren American Inn of Court. She is also affiliated with WealthCounsel and the South Asian Bar Association. These memberships indicate engagement with estate planning networks and diverse legal communities.
Santaella is admitted to practice in California. Her practice draws on decades of corporate counseling and private-law work. She combines the procedural habits learned in-house with the more client-facing work of a small law office. She currently practices through Santaella Legal Group, APC, handling matters that arise from her corporate counsel background and her work with estate-planning networks.
