Practice Area

Immigration Law

Bar Admission

Kentucky

Languages

English and Spanish

Education

University of Kentucky College of Law, Lexington, Kentucky

• Juris Doctorate - 2015

Patterson School of Diplomacy & International Commerce, Lexington, Kentucky

• M.A., Master of Arts - 2013

• Major: Diplomacy

• Major: International Commerce

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

• B.A., Bachelor of Arts - 2009

• Major: Political Science

• Major: English Literature

Publications

The Depth of Endurance: A Critical Look at Prolonged Solitary Confinement in Light of the Constitution and a Call to Reform, Kentucky Law Journal, Volume 103 Issue 4 Article 5, 2015

Professional Affiliations

• American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), 2016 to Present

• American Bar Association, 2016 to Present

• Kentucky Bar Association, 2016 to Present

• Fayette County Bar Association, 2016 to Present

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 2017 to Present

Biography

Shannon was born and raised in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural Wilkesboro, North Carolina. She is the daughter of Sonny, a local business owner, and Susanne, a high school English teacher. Her German-born maternal grandmother, Irmi, left Nuremberg in 1954 to make a life for herself in the United States.

In 2009, Shannon received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was a Herring Scholar. During college, Shannon lived and volunteered in Salvador, Brazil, traveled Europe, and worked in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area with the local Hispanic community. Upon graduation from college, Shannon traveled to Central America to teach English at the bilingual Pan-American School in Heredia, Costa Rica. 

A year later, Shannon followed her college roommate to Louisville, Kentucky where she interned with the Legal Aid Society. Shannon fell in love with the Commonwealth and decided to pursue her law degree at the University of Kentucky. As a law student, Shannon was an Articles Editor for the Kentucky Law Journal and an active member of the International Law Society. She also served as a research assistant to Professor Joshua A. Douglas on his publication “Election Law Stories.” 

After her first year of law school, Shannon interned in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the international nonprofit organization Directorio Legislativo. During the spring semester of her second year, Shannon attended Leiden Law School in The Netherlands where she studied migration trends in the European Union. While abroad, she worked in The Hague as a research fellow for the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the promotion of the rule of law. As a third-year law student, Shannon completed an internship with the Department of State’s Virtual Foreign Service program in collaboration with the Nigerian branch of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 2015, Shannon graduated from the University of Kentucky’s College of Law and Patterson School dual degree program receiving both a Juris Doctorate and a Master of Arts degree in Diplomacy and International Commerce.

Since becoming a licensed attorney, Shannon has practiced exclusively in the field of immigration and she prides herself on being an effective advocate for immigrants in the state of Kentucky and around the world. Her practice touches on all areas of immigration law: adjustment of status filings, employment-based petitions, immigrant visa petitions, consular processing, naturalization applications, relief from removal proceedings, victim visas, and waiver applications, among others. 

Shannon is fluent in Spanish and continues to work on her proficiency in German. In her free time, Shannon enjoys spending time with her husband and their two children, traveling, reading, gardening, and all things North Carolina Tarheels.