Building a More Intentional Legal Practice feat. Dana Shaker (December 2022)

11 minutes ago

3 min read

Dana Shaker is a trademark lawyer, policy consultant, business owner, and yoga and wellness teacher helping lawyers, law students, and law graduates build more intentional wellness practices. In this episode, Dana returns to You Are a Lawyer to share how her relationship with yoga has evolved, why she launched her own trademark law firm, and how lawyers can create space for themselves while building demanding careers.

About This Episode

Background

Dana Shaker has built a career that combines several parts of her identity rather than forcing herself to choose just one. She is a trademark lawyer with her own law firm, a policy consultant, and a yoga and wellness teacher specifically serving lawyers, law students, law graduates, and people studying for the bar exam. Her relationship with yoga began much earlier, when she was a competitive swimmer and used yoga as cross-training in high school and college.

“I really got into kind of the deeper, you know, yoga, meditation, mindset work after law school when I was studying for the bar exam," shares Dana Shaker on You Are A Lawyer.

Studying for the bar transformed yoga from physical exercise into something deeper for Dana. It became a way to slow down, understand herself, and navigate a challenging period in her life. Eventually, that experience inspired Journey and Practice, her yoga and wellness business. The name reflects Dana’s belief that both law and wellness are practices, requiring people to continually show up, learn, change, and grow.

Why Law School

Dana originally went to law school because she was interested in food law and policy, an interest she has maintained throughout her career. Her legal path, however, has continued to evolve. After entering the online business world through her yoga business, Dana began meeting other young lawyers who were building their own firms and working directly with entrepreneurs. Seeing what they were creating made her reconsider what practicing law could look like for her.

“I was just so inspired by them. I was like, wow, look at this, you know, like people who are my age, you know, who graduated from law school, who have maybe a few years under their belt, or they're just graduating and they're just diving into this whole entrepreneurship world," reflects Dana Shaker on Episode 71 of You Are a Lawyer.

Rather than abandoning her original interests, Dana looked for another area of law that could complement the work she wanted to do with entrepreneurs. She found that opportunity in trademark law. The regulatory elements appealed to the same part of her that had been interested in food law, while intellectual property gave her a practical way to help business owners protect what they were building.

What Can You Do with a Law Degree

Dana’s career is a great example of how a law degree can support several professional identities at once. She works in policy, operates her own trademark law firm, and has created a wellness business for the legal community. Rather than treating these pursuits as completely separate careers, Dana has found ways for them to inform one another.

“I have these skills, you know, I can do this and I want entrepreneurs to thrive," explains Dana Shaker on this episode of You Are a Lawyer.

Her own experience building a yoga business helped Dana recognize how confusing the legal side of entrepreneurship can be. She had to navigate contracts, intellectual property protection, and other business considerations herself. Trademark law gave her an opportunity to become the kind of resource she knew other entrepreneurs needed. As a third-generation law firm owner, Dana has also taken the entrepreneurial side of her family’s legal legacy and built something that reflects her own interests and values.

Lawyer Side Hustles

Journey and Practice grew from Dana’s personal experience using yoga and mindfulness during stressful periods of her own legal journey. Today, she teaches yoga and wellness specifically for the legal community, including lawyers, law students, law graduates, and bar exam students. Her approach extends beyond physical movement to include meditation, reflection, mindfulness, and creating intentional space to reconnect with yourself.

“That's the beauty of life is that we have the opportunity to change every day, and we do change every day,” shares Dana Shaker on Episode 71 of You Are a Lawyer.

Becoming a teacher has also changed Dana’s relationship with yoga. Teaching a class is not the same as practicing for herself, and she has learned that being of service to others cannot replace making time for her own wellbeing. Sometimes that means rolling out her mat for only ten or twenty minutes and asking herself what she needs that day. That mindset has helped her become more intentional about balancing her own practice with the demands of teaching, consulting, practicing law, and running businesses.