The ABI board of directors named James Patrick Shea of Armstrong Teasdale (Las Vegas) to be president for a one-year term which began during ABI’s 2015 Annual Spring Meeting. An ABI member since 1988, Shea is formerly ABI’s VP-Communications & Information Technology and the founding chair of ABI’s former subcommittee on Gaming Insolvencies and Reorganizations. He is also a chair of ABI’s Civility Task Force and a former program chair of ABI’s Southwest Bankruptcy Conference.

Shea has more than 30 years of experience advising financial institutions, landlords, vendors and other creditors in business bankruptcy proceedings. He has represented a number of hotel casinos and airlines, as well as numerous financial institutions. A frequent author and lecturer, he is also former chairman of the State Bar of Nevada’s Bankruptcy Law Section and has served as chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Southern Nevada Association of Bankruptcy Attorneys. He is AV-rated by Martindale Hubbell and is named in The Best Lawyers in America, The Best Lawyers in Nevada and Nevada Super Lawyers. Shea is a graduate of the University of Arizona College of Law, where he was the chair of the Moot Court Board and the recipient of the Mitchell C. Nelson Award for legal scholarship.

The American Bankruptcy Institute board of directors also named Jeffrey N. Pomerantz of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones to be president-elect. He will become president for a one-year term, starting at ABI’s 2016 Annual Spring Meeting.

An ABI member since 2000, Pomerantz served as ABI’s VP-Education and a member of ABI’s Executive Committee, and has served as a co-chair of ABI’s Southwest Bankruptcy Conference and Bankruptcy Battleground West conference.

Pomerantz is a partner at Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, where his practice includes representing companies and creditors’ committees in complex in and out of court financial restructurings and is generally focused on middle market companies with annual revenues ranging from $25 million $300 million. He is the author of “The Bare Necessities of Critical Vendor Motions—It’s a Jungle Out There,” 13 Journal of Bankruptcy Law & Practice (2004), and has lectured or been a panelist for ABI, the Los Angeles Bankruptcy Forum, Financial Lawyers Conference and Credit Managers Association.