Lori J. Shapiro grew up in New Jersey just close enough to New York City to occasionally go see Broadway plays. She also grew up wanting to be a lawyer. So when she graduated from Brandeis University near Boston, she went to New York University School of Law.

After working for law firms in Boston and Atlanta, she took an in-house job with Employment Learning Innovations, a workplace training company based in Atlanta. In her role as GC for seven years, she taught some of the company’s offerings for business people.