Sidney "Sid" Alan Shapiro was born in Madison, Nebraska, the son of Edward "Eddie" (1912-1973) and Frances "Fran" (Rosenthal) Shapiro (1920-2020). His parents ran the Golden Rule clothing store with Fran's parents William and Sarah Rosenthal until it closed in the 1990s.

Sid Shapiro graduated from Norfolk High School in 1966 in Norfolk, Nebraska. He moved to Pennyslvania and earned his bachelors in science in economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, where he was a member of the debate team and served as chairman of the students' Committee on Undergraduate Education. He earned his JD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973 and served as editor of the University of Pennyslvania Law Review during his studies.

From 1973-1973, Shapiro served as a trial attorney with the Federal Trade Commission. He then served as Deputy Legal Counsel for the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) from 1975-1976 on the Secretary's Review Panel on New Drug Regulation.

Shapiro joined the KU School of Law faculty in 1976, starting as an associate professor and then being promoted to full professor in 1982. From 1988-2004 he was the John M. Rounds Professor of Law, the first person to hold that distinguished professorship at KU. From 1999-2004 he was Associate Dean for Research.

In 2004 Shapiro moved to North Carolina, where he first served as University Distinguished Chair at Wake Forest University. He was later appointed Associate Dean for Research and Development from 2007-2010, and since 2015 he has been the Frank U. Fletcher Chair of Administrative Law at Wake Forest. He has also held visiting professorships at the University of Texas, Georgetown University, University of North Carolina, Lewis and Clark Law School, and University of Padua, as well as visiting scholar roles at Oxford University and the University of Indiana.

Shapiro was awarded a Humanities fellowship from the Hall Center for the Humanities for a Freedom's Soil II Project in 1986-1987, as well as a fellowship at Dartmouth College for the Economics Institute for Law Professors, sponsored by Emory University's Law and Economics Center. In 1995 he won the Arthur Kulp Memorial Award from the American Risk and Insurance Association for his book Workers at Risk: The Failed Promise of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (1993, with Thomas O. McGarity).

Sid Shapiro married Joyce Norma Sandler (1949 - ) in 1971, with whom he has two children, Jeremy and Sarah.

[Information retrieved from University Archives morgue files, faculty website and CV from Wake Forest University, and findagrave.com.]