[1] Though he began reading for the bar at the Middle Temple, he chose instead to become a solicitor, and was articled in 1844 to the radical William Henry Ashurst.

[1] Shaen was admitted to the profession in 1848, and that year played a central role in creating the Metropolitan and Provincial Law Association, acting as its inaugural secretary.

[1] Part of a large group of influential middle-class Unitarians in London, Shaen associated closely with the radical Ashurst family and was, like them, drawn to social and political reform.

[1] Shaen combined a successful solicitor's practice with active support for various British and international causes, including women's education and suffrage, Italian unity and democracy, the abolition of slavery, and the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Shaen's entry in the Dictionary of National Biography concludes that:His generosity, enthusiasm, organizing ability, and persistence, combined with intellectual clarity, had won for him the confidence and affection of all who had dealings with him and a considerable reputation as a lawyer and a humanitarian.

[1]In a memoir of her father published in 1912, Margaret J. Shaen wrote:From the family [nonconformist] tradition thus inherited he doubtless derived somewhat of that firm grasp of principle which characterised all his public work, and something, too, of that patient persistence, that steadfast courage, in attacking great wrongs, or fighting what might seem almost overwhelming odds, which made those who stood beside him feel that the weakest cause grew strong when he took it in his hands.