About Shannon
Shannon Benay trained first as a political scientist and later as an attorney. She earned a B.A. in political science from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1994 and a J.D. from Roger Williams University School of Law in 2001. Those academic steps led her into a career that increasingly centered on mediation and volunteer legal work.
Her formal credentials in mediation include a 40-hour training through Mares-Dixon and Associates. She began serving in volunteer mediation roles around 2010. Early on she worked with Jefferson County Mediation Services as a volunteer mediator from 2010 to 2011. That brief stint prefaced a longer period of community-oriented service that continues today.
Since 2012 she has taken on several volunteer positions. She has served as a volunteer mediator with CMCRI and as a volunteer lawyer for programs run by the Rhode Island Bar Association. She also participates in the Senior Partners Volunteer Lawyers Project. Those roles have kept her in close contact with people who need dispute resolution and access to legal help outside of traditional litigation pathways.
Benay holds memberships in multiple professional organizations tied to mediation and the bar. She has been a member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and the Rhode Island Mediators Association since 2011. She belongs to the Massachusetts Bar Association since 2011 and to the Rhode Island Bar Association since 2007. Her multi-state professional presence reflects the jurisdictions where she is licensed to practice: Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Colorado.
Her work spans community mediation and volunteer legal services. The combination of training, volunteer work and organizational memberships suggests a practice oriented around mediated dispute resolution rather than courtroom advocacy alone. Colleagues and program organizers have relied on her for volunteer mediations over the last decade.
Benay’s career shows steady involvement in mediation networks in New England and beyond. She continues to serve as a mediator and to participate in bar-sponsored volunteer programs, maintaining an active presence across Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Colorado. Her current practice centers on mediation in family and civil matters across those jurisdictions.
