Patrick Shea (Utah lawyer)

Patrick A. Shea (born February 28, 1948) is a Salt Lake City based lawyer who has taken on many cases related to freedom of the press. He also held office in the United States Department of the Interior.

Shea co-authored with Rodney K. Smith Religion and the Press: Keeping First Amendment Values in Balance, a book which argued that Freedom of the Press had been taken too far in allowing the media to publish unsubstantiated claims that demean religious leaders.^[1]

Shea also represented Massachusetts Democratic Party in seeking to gain enough information to exclude Mitt Romney from running for governor in Massachusetts.^[2] He represented Skip Knowles in his case involving being fired by the Salt Lake Tribune for plagiarism.^[3] He represented Steven Greenstreet's defense against Kay Anderson's attempts to prevent Greenstreet's use of an interview with Anderson in a documentary film This Divided State.^[4] Shea also was one of the lawyers for Brent Jeffs in his sexual molestation suit against his uncle Warren Jeffs.^[5] Shea represented, with Ron Yengich and Elizabeth Hunt, Tim DeChristopher the University of Utah climate activist who in 2008 disrupted a Bureau of Land Management, oil and gas auction by out bidding all of the oil and gas representatives. He was tried before Federal Judge Dee Benson and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment in a federal prison. Tim served his time and is now a student at the Harvard Divinity School. Shea is admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia and Utah.

Education

Shea received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University. He then was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1975. He has taught courses at Brigham Young University, University of Utah, Kansas State University, and Westminster College. Since his return to Utah in 2001 Shea has been a member of the University of Utah political science department's faculty. Shea was an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Agronomy at Kansas State University from 2001-2009. Shea was a Fellowship Adviser to Honors Program at Westminster College, Salt Lake City in collaboration with 'The Living Arts Experience: A Seminar in Liberal Ideals'. Shea is an Associate Research Professor of Biology at the University of Utah and a consultant to the Dean of the College of Science. He teaches a course for seniors and first year graduate students entitled "Biography of an Urban Stream". The course exams the interaction between the geology, hydrology and biology of the Canyon which is next to the University of Utah.

Political career

Shea became chairman of Utah Democratic Party in 1983 and chaired state presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton. he ran for Governor of Utah in 1992 (lost in the primary by a margin of 57% to 43%^[6] to Stewart Hanson, who finished third behind Republican winner Mike Leavitt and Independent Merrill Cook in the general election), and was the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate against Orrin Hatch in 1994 (lost by 68.8%-28.3%).

In 1997, Shea was appointed as the national director of the Bureau of Land Management. he served as the director of the Bureau of Land Management and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management under President Clinton.

Prior to becoming head of the BLM, Shea was the head of City Creek Canyon Park in Salt Lake City.

Shea is an Irish Catholic.

Sources

• Deseret News, February 13, 2001
• Shea biography
• Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources trustees page
• webpage for Patrick A. Shea
• Attorney Profile

References