Reuben Shelton was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a standout high school basketball player recruited to play for the national powerhouse Kansas University Jayhawks. A career-ending injury focused him on his career objective of becoming a lawyer, and following a clerkship with St. Louis' first African American federal circuit court judge, he embarked on a corporate law career at a prominent law firm in St. Louis. He would transition from serving as outside counsel to going in-house and working for a couple of large corporations, including Monsanto where he rose to become the company's lead counsel for litigation. Over the course of his career, Reuben achieved many firsts including becoming the first African American president of The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis and of the Missouri Bar Association. He retired in early 2017, and turned his focus to furthering his civic service, and was elected national president of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. in 2019.