Ms. Shafer graduated from Santa Clara University School of Law in 2013, where she was an Emery Merit Scholar and the recipient of a Witkin Award for Academic Excellence. During law school, she interned at VMWare and clerked for a boutique civil litigation firm in San Jose, gaining experience in intellectual property and business litigation.

Ms. Shafer was an Editor of Santa Clara's High Technology Law Journal, one of the leading academic publications on intellectual property law in the country. She also served as a Director of Santa Clara's Honors Moot Court program and was actively involved in the Northern California Innocence Project.

Ms. Shafer earned her BA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. As an undergraduate, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and competed in the NCAA Championships as a member of the women's rowing team.