Our Next Speaker

Shannon L. Taylor, Commonwealth's Attorney Henrico County; “The Role of the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office

”Shannon Taylor was elected the first female Commonwealth’s Attorney for Henrico County on November 8, 2011.  She took office on January 1, 2012, and was re-elected for her second term on November 3, 2015.  She continues to be committed to mental health, substance abuse, and criminal justice reform, while aggressively prosecuting violent offenders to Keep Henrico Safe.

Ms. Taylor was the senior trial attorney with the law firm of Boone Beale from 2008 through December 2011. Shannon was the Special Counsel for the Richmond Multi-Jurisdictional Grand Jury (which included Henrico, Richmond, Chesterfield and Hanover) from 2004 to 2008. In that capacity, she was involved in hundreds of drug and homicide investigations and worked with the Virginia State Police, Alcohol Beverage Commission, and Commonwealth’s Department of Taxation.  

Once she graduated from law school, Taylor worked for the Richmond City Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office where she experienced virtually all areas of criminal law, from juvenile and domestic relations to drugs to homicides. Her aggressive and successful prosecutions led the Commonwealth’s Attorney to twice assign her as a Special Assistant US Attorney to the US Attorney’s Office in Richmond where she handled gun cases arising from Project Exile and violent crime cases with the expansion of Project Safe Neighborhoods. 

Taylor attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where in 1989, she received a bachelor’s degree majoring in International Relations. After graduating from the University of Virginia, she moved to Richmond and worked at Hunton and Williams law firm as a paralegal before attending law school and receiving her Juris Doctor in 1995 from the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond.