Home - The Key Practice, LLC

A boutique law firm dedicated to providing key legal solutions to secure your future.

Who we are

The Key Practice LLC is a boutique law firm dedicated to providing key legal solutions to secure your future. The firm provides personalized services to clients, including short-term or immediate work, and long-term legal solutions to allow for growth.

The firm is dedicated to ensuring that clients are aware of the entire process as a whole and as its happening, so we strive to maintain consistent communication. We specialize in working with entrepreneurs, creatives, athletes, and artists to assist with forming new business ventures and protecting their brand.

The Key Practice LLC provides third-party mediation services and legal services in the following areas:

Contracts

Business Law

General Counsel Services

Attorney Profile

Shauki M. Smith, Esq.

Shauki M. Smith is a native of San Francisco, California. Growing up in the Bay Area amidst successful professional sports teams fostered her love of sports. As her love of sports grew, Shauki started following athletes and began to notice how many athletes were experiencing financial difficulties. Already passionate about helping others, these stories became the catalyst for Shauki’s professional goal of becoming a Sports Agent to help athletes make sound business and legal decisions, to include protecting their brand.

Shauki cultivated her educational pursuits to understand how all the pieces fit together. Moreso, while she knew that she could never play every position, Shauki wanted to make sure that she was aware of how the other players should move. As such, Shauki pursued an advanced degree in Marketing to understand how to properly leverage and monetize branding. As Shauki continued to work in various corporate accounting roles, she obtained a Master of Accounting degree to extend her accounting knowledge beyond simple debits and credits. Thinking she had found the final piece to reach her goal, while in her Juris Master program at Emory University School of Law, Shauki took a combination of academic (Contracts, Intellectual Property, Sports and Marketing) and practicum courses (Negotiations, Contract Drafting, Deal Skills) to gain the relevant skills she ultimately believed she’d need. It was during this time that she discovered she could help more than just athletes and

expanded her vision to include entrepreneurs and creatives. However, this also meant attending law school again and obtaining a Juris Doctor (JD) degree to become a barred attorney.”Prior to starting her JD program, Shauki was an Adjunct Business, Accounting, and Business Law Instructor for over fifteen years. While enrolled in law school, Shauki ended her twenty-year career as a Corporate Accountant. During law school, Shauki became a Registered Neutral (Mediator) in the State of Georgia and in January 2021, Shauki was admitted to the Georgia Bar. Shauki believes that her professional experience is invaluable when providing legal advice to her clients and enables herto not only look at the matter at hand, but also provide a full-circle, long-term perspective. Shauki is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and in her free time, enjoys traveling,reading, hanging out with her sorors and friends, watching sports, and attending live music events. Shauki is an avid sports fan, and a die-hard member of the (Las Vegas) Raider Nation.

Education

San Francisco State University, BS (Business Administration/Accounting)
Mercer University, MBA (Marketing)
Kennesaw State University, MAcc
Emory University School of Law, JM (Media/Marketing Law)
Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, JD