Nicole Shanahan J.D. ’14 is the founder and CEO of ClearAccessIP, an innovation strategy platform that dramatically accelerates the idea to market process. ClearAccessIP uses artificial intelligence to automate many of the costs related to creating a patent portfolio, managing data, analyzing inventions, and engaging in collaborative transactions.  She is a Stanford CodeX Fellow and has been featured in ABA Law Journal, Huffington Post, and MOGUL for her tremendous work in legal technology. She says, "While in law school I participated in research of the patent system and worked with Professor Chien to identify key weaknesses in both patent law and the transactional marketplace for patents. I finally dug into creating the company while in law school, after my research led me to take a stance on where the future of this industry is headed (or should head). The more time I spent around patent data, the more I realized the value in aggregating it and creating standard processes of analysis around the patented technologies… I’ve always been attracted to the concept that you can own an idea, and that ideas can lead to people coming together to build something, and that something can potentially change the course of human history. I feel that it’s important that lawyers don’t just ‘practice law’ but actually serve as guardians of progress, and improving the patent system is just one small piece of this large puzzle.” Nicole also does a lot of yoga, paddle boarding, snowboarding, swimming, running, cooking, meditation, and kite boarding.