Balancing work life and home life is always a struggle, but one Tallahassee woman does it all and then some.

If she's not busy defending someone, then she's out fighting for a cause...

Beth Shankle-Anderson leads a very hectic life. If she's not teaching law, then she's practicing it. She's a wife, a homemaker, a community advocate, and just recently was named Miss Tallahassee.
covered
"I saw it as an opportunity to do it and I thought that this is a great way to become a leader in Tallahassee.

To raise the visibility, not only of myself being an attorney, but also of the causes that mean the most to me."

Beth spends a lot of her time working with the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. It's a charity that she knows about all too well.

"I lost my father to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma when I was a young girl."

So Shankle-Anderson contacted the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, told them her story, and they named her honorary spokesperson for the 2009 Light the Night walk. It's an honor that Beth holds close to her heart.

"I wanted to be the voice for them here. I volunteered to testify on their behalf at the Florida House of Representatives in February."

Beth also does work for autism. She had a childhood friend that lived with the condition and so she's using her knowledge of the law and her power of persuasion to motivate lawmakers to give more to fight autism.

"There is 15 states including Florida and I realized there was quite disparate treatment for autistic patients between the states. So we were really pushing for national legislation so that everybody suffering from autism could have the same care. The research was actually taken up by then Senator Barack Obama."