Shanahan is a California attorney and founder and CEO of ClearAccessIP, an automated patent management tool. Shanahan, who is in her early 30s, has been linked romantically to Google cofounder Sergey Brin in the press. Nicole Shanahan is an attorney in California and a research fellow at CodeX, the Stanford Center of Legal Informatics, a joint center between Stanford Law School and Computer Science. She is the founder and CEO of ClearAccessIP an automated patent management and valuation platform, and a legal technologist who specializes in the legal applications of neural networks, structured databases, APIs, UI/UX, automation and SaaS. Apart from the practical applications of legal technology, she is formulating an economic theory, entitled "Coasean Mapping" to predict the pace and nature of society's adoption of legal artificial intelligence. Other areas of high interest include: Criminal Justice Reform, and improving marriage contracts such that they promote healthy domestic partnerships. She spent $4 million to help fund Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial 2024 Super Bowl ad. In 2022, Shanahan found herself at the center of another media firestorm, after The Wall Street Journal reported that her divorce was precipitated by an affair she allegedly had with Elon Musk.