Amy Wells

Los Angeles

Practice: real estate

Specialty: representing pension funds in major real estate acquisitions

Wells, a prominent real estate attorney for public employee pension funds, figures that she's worked on more than $2 billion in transactions in the past 18 months.

Currently, she is assisting the $229 billion California Pubic Employees' Retirement System in implementing its 2011 real estate strategic plan, as well as negotiating the relationships between CalPERS and partners representing various real estate matters.

The new agreements will govern management of existing assets as well as new investments. To accomplish all of this, Wells works with CalPERS' business staff, in-house lawyers and outside consultants.

"It's fun, exciting and challenging," Wells said, "and there is a lot of money at stake."

Wells said she doesn't get involved in the heated debate over pension systems in a bad economy.

"I'm not a benefits lawyer," she said. "I'm not involved in what benefits they should and shouldn't be getting."

What she does focus on is the bottom line.

"The goal of the pension fund is to invest wisely and make as much return as you can to pay benefits out to constituents," she said.

The pension fund business team identifies the strategy and the partners it feels are the best strategic partners, she added.

"I don't select the investors," Wells said. "I implement the strategy they have come up with."

In the current business climate, she said, "my clients continue to be cautious in underwriting and evaluating."

Wells also spends time working out what she calls "troubled relationships."

"Whether due to the downturn in the market or a change in the allocation of a fund, we had to restructure those relationships," Wells said. "Sometimes it means divorcing from your partner and sometimes restructuring the relationship to more accurately reflect the market today."

But even when things do turn sour, she said, there are lessons to be learned.

"We can use the information across the board, to all of our clients, because they all have similar objectives - to increase benefits."

- PAT BRODERICK