Jennifer Shirkey is an attorney with Flora Pettit PC, a central Virginia law firm with offices in Charlottesville and Harrisonburg. She has over 20 years of legal experience, concentrating her practice in employee benefits and estate planning. On a daily basis Jennifer helps business, non-profit, and governmental employers of all sizes navigate their employee benefit plans through the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA. She has particular expertise in ESOPs and other forms of equity incentive compensation. In working with clients, she applies her technical legal expertise to give practical counsel and develop creative strategies to their employee benefits challenges.
Beyond client work, Jennifer is a member of Central Virginia Employee Benefits Council and the American Bar Association Joint Committee on Employee Benefits. She has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® every year since 2010 in the area of Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law. She is also a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, where she is a member of the Employee Benefits in Estate Planning Committee. Jennifer currently serves on the James Madison University Foundation’s Board of Trustees and has previously served as Chair of the Virginia State Bar’s Trust and Estates Section, Chair of The Community Foundation of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, and President of the Harrisonburg Rotary Club.
Jennifer graduated summa cum laude from both Washington and Lee University School of Law and James Madison University and clerked for the Honorable H. Emory Widener, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She lives in Harrisonburg with her husband, three school-age children, two French Bulldogs, and a pair of rescue kitties. When she’s not at the office or shuttling kids, she enjoys yoga, interval training, gardening, and anything related to good food.