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Shannon Morales D’Jamoos, assistant general counsel of employment for North America at Mars, recalls how her parents jokingly predicted her career at an early age.
“They told me I would be a great lawyer because I loved to argue with them,” she says with a laugh.
Her parents were just some of the voices and mentors who helped guide her to her seventeen-year career in law.
Originally from the Buffalo area, D’Jamoos considered becoming a doctor until realizing in a high school AP biology class that the medical path was not for her.
“Once I realized I didn’t have the stomach for medicine, I started thinking about what becoming a lawyer would look like, because there were no lawyers in my family,” she explains. “I come from a family of educators and thought I would become a family law attorney to bring some good into the world.”
D’Jamoos attended Princeton and took every available law-related class. Then she pursued her JD at Notre Dame Law School, where she became interested in employment law.
“I had taken an employment discrimination class as a second-year law student with a really fabulous professor, and she brought the material to life,” D’Jamoos recounts. “I couldn’t get enough of it.”
After graduating, she took a job at a regional firm, Genova Burns, in Newark, New Jersey. There, she met her husband, a civil litigation attorney with Hispanic roots.
“My husband and I worked under the same two gentlemen—John Petrella and Sandy Polledri—and they were wonderful about teaching us how to practice law,” D’Jamoos notes about her three-year stint with the firm. “They were encouraging and patient, dedicating their time and sharing their experience to train new attorneys. They also had a sense of humor that made the work fun.”
From 2010 to 2013, D’Jamoos worked for Littler Mendelson, primarily handling federal employment law cases in New York and state discrimination cases in New Jersey. She gained invaluable experience under the mentorship of Stacey D. Adams (now the Honorable Stacey D. Adams, U.S.D.N.J.) and Eboneé Hamilton Lewis.
“I loved the work, but firm life is exhausting, and it wasn’t something I saw myself doing long-term,” she says.
For the next three years, D’Jamoos advised business leaders and human resources professionals on all aspects of employment law as corporate counsel for an Indian tech company. Her time there taught her how to handle cultural differences and implement employment laws within a global, foreign-based corporation. It also reinforced the importance of strong mentorship throughout her career progression. When her manager and mentor left the company, she lost the support needed to impact the organization—and started looking for a new job.
“The mentors in my life … have shown me that you can have a rich family life in addition to practicing law.”
Shannon Morales D’Jamoos
“I wanted to find a company that valued my knowledge, expertise, and me as a whole person,” D’Jamoos recalls. “At the time, I had two children under the age of three, and the company expected I would stay, even though there was an unwillingness to promote me.”
Her search for a company whose values aligned more closely with hers led to Gap Inc. “[Judge] Stacey Adams, whom D’Jamoos had worked closely with at Littler Mendelson, was the client managing shareholder for Gap. She put in a good word for me with Gap, and I thrived there for six years,” she says.
“It was such a great job, and the woman who was my manager for the first three-and-a-half years, [Yolanda Sanders], brought her whole self to work every day and genuinely valued each of her direct reports. It was inspiring,” she continues. “She and Felecia Shaw, the head of employee relations, taught me so much about doing right by the employees and the business and being creative when a conflict arose between the two.” D’Jamoos credits the way she practices law today to both wonderful mentors.
Her years at Gap were marked by professional and personal milestones. In late spring 2020, amid the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, “all of the employment attorneys were locked down and working feverishly because the laws were changing constantly,” D’Jamoos shares.
“In the middle of that, I had to disclose to Yolanda I was pregnant with twins. She was so over-the-moon excited for me. A lot of managers would have taken that news differently, but I felt so supported. That, in turn, motivated me to be more committed and work harder for the company in those challenging years during and following the pandemic.”
Although D’Jamoos loved her experience at Gap and knew she wanted to continue as an employment law specialist, she was hungry for something more. In January 2024, she found the right opportunity at Mars.
“Mars gave me more of a chance to grow, a chance to lead, and a chance to build something, since I was hired as the organization’s first in-house employment counsel,” D’Jamoos explains.
D’Jamoos and fellow Assistant General Counsel Rebecca Clar are evaluating the employment law needs of Mars with an eye toward the future. “We are getting our arms around all of the work that exists within the consumer product businesses,” D’Jamoos notes. “We look for where change is needed, where training is needed, where we may be at risk. We are figuring out what employment law will look like in two years, in five years, and [farther] in the future.”
Reflecting on the mentors she’s learned from, D’Jamoos feels it’s her duty to pay it forward. For instance, last summer she found herself at a work event with law firm summer associates, many of them women. She candidly answered their questions, which were primarily focused on how to balance a legal career with having a family.
“The number of women who drop out of law entirely is still really, really high,” she sighs. “The mentors in my life, especially Yolanda Sanders and Judge Adams, have shown me that you can have a rich family life in addition to practicing law. I told them, ‘If you find the right place, you can progress in your career and build the family life you want.’”
