Our Legal Team

Shauna founded Barnes Beverage Group to advise alcohol beverage companies of all sizes and at all stages. She and her team have over 50 years of experience in the industry. She has stocked her firm with in-house legal and compliance professionals because she knows traditional law firm incentives don’t align with how companies approach business decisions. Shauna’s goal is to have her team be efficient and focused on risk in every engagement with clients. Their clients include nano, micro, and craft breweries, distillers, wineries, importers and brand owners, as well as established publicly traded companies, who are making all types of alcoholic and non-alcoholic products, including beer, wine, spirits, and beyond-beer.

Shauna, a nationally recognized alcohol attorney, has over a decade of experience giving legal advice to beverage companies, most of which was spent as General Counsel for Dogfish Head.  She has extensive experience counseling executive and management teams on legal, compliance, and regulatory risks surrounding day-to-day operations, strategic planning, international expansion, product rollouts, and major promotions and marketing campaigns. In addition to her strengths as a true general counsel, Shauna marries legal and strategic advice to help her clients, big and small, navigate the life cycle of distribution relationships. She’s negotiated hundreds of distribution agreements with the end in mind, successfully rehabilitated dozens of distributor relationships, and successfully advised clients through exiting the relationship – whether the reason was good cause or an M&A event.

Executive teams also benefit from Shauna’s experience providing creative solutions to tricky regulatory schemes, including shepherding legislative changes through the statehouse. She has considerable expertise drafting and negotiating commercial agreements, including distribution and supply agreements, project and purchase agreements, and sponsorship and events agreements. She has also worked with lobbyists and trade associations on a continuous basis since 2012 and has drafted several pieces of legislation that became law.

Shauna’s first job out of law school was at McDermott Will & Emery in Washington, D.C., providing antitrust and alc-bev counsel until she joined Dogfish. While at Dogfish, Shauna started the legal department and helped launch a distillery, launch dozens of states, and expand the brewery and distillery’s capacity. She also negotiated hundreds of distribution agreements and navigated over a dozen strategic distribution partnership changes without one ending in litigation or arbitration.

She was most recently a principal at Kaleo Legal, where she spent three years building her current team before launching Barnes Beverage Group (www.DrinksLaw.com).

Shauna graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University School of Law and was a graduate with distinction from the Pennsylvania State University. She serves on the Law Board of Visitors for the Wake Forest University School of Law and is a member of several alcohol beverage industry associations, including Women of the Vine & Spirits, the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators, the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, and the Brewer’s Association She regularly volunteers her time to the Delaware Brewer’s Guild, assisting the members with alcohol-related challenges and legislative efforts.