He was the federal court-appointed attorney that represented 170-plus municipal entities[1] with investments of over $5 billion in the Orange County, California, Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
Following a tumultuous several year period of financial disclosures by the City of San Diego relating to its massively underfunded pension and retiree health care system,[3] in 2005 Shea ran for mayor of San Diego on a platform of filing a Chapter 9 bankruptcy for the city in order to restructure its troubled financial condition.
[9] Before that, Shea served as Partner in the San Diego office of Pillsbury Winthrop LLP, where he specialized in commercial finance, litigation and financial reorganization.
[4] In 2005, Shea ran unsuccessfully for mayor[10] of San Diego, California,[11] advocating that the city should file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy [12] to address its financial problems.
[4] He is married to financial advisor Diann Shipione, the former City of San Diego, California pension-board member, who in 2002 was the first to say San Diego's finances were vulnerable because the city was raising public employee retirement benefits without making the necessary pension fund contributions to pay for them.