Laura Lee Shields was born in Tampa, FL. She attended high school at Bloomingdale High School in Valrico. For undergraduate school, she attended the University of Florida, Florida International University, and the University of South Florida. She earned a degree in Mass Communications with a concentration in Advertising. She also earned a minor degree in English. After college, she went to work as a medical records reviewer at the Tampa law firm of Wilkes & McHugh, PA. She attended law school at Barry University in Orlando. In law school, she was a member of the trial team and served as its secretary. She also served as vice president and then president of the Hispanic American Law Student Association and she started the school's chapter of the American Association for Justice and served as its president.

In her second year as a student, she began working for Raymond Bodiford in the area of plaintiff's products liability, shortly following her own rollover car accident on Interstate 4. In her last semester of law school, she worked as a certified legal intern for the Public Defender's office in the 9th Judicial Circuit. There, she tried her first jury case which resulted in a "not guilty" verdict. She currently voulnteers with the Legal Aid Society as a Guardian Ad Litem and the Parramore Kidz Zone as a mentor