Paul S. Rutter is Of Counsel to Gilchrist & Rutter. Mr. Rutter co-founded the firm in 1983. After working as an Executive Vice President and as a Chief Operating Officer in two different publicly held real estate companies over the past 8 years, Mr. Rutter has returned to his practice. He now combines his legal and business experience to provide clients with a unique perspective on the real estate industry and the practical and legal aspects of deals. Mr. Rutter is currently advising clients on several different transactions and his practice will focus on both real estate and general business transactions, including development, financing, leasing, acquisition and disposition of commercial, mixed use and industrial properties as well as business organizations, employment contracts and asset based transactions. Mr. Rutter's practice has included the formation, structuring and documentation of numerous business organizations involved in the ownership, financing, management and development of real estate and other businesses, joint venture agreements with private equity funds, pension funds and other institutional capital, negotiation and documentation of several million square feet of leases, development and management agreements, and consulting agreements for projects ranging from small local projects to large scale projects involving several million square feet; representation of both borrowers and lenders on several billion dollars of real estate loans, including construction, bridge and permanent loans; creation of reciprocal easement agreements and CC&Rs for mixed-use and multi-phase projects; negotiation of construction, architectural and engineering services agreements for several million square feet of retail, office and hotel projects; large scale development agreements and owner participation agreements with local governmental agencies; secured and unsecured loan workouts; and debt restructurings. Representative clients have included Maguire Properties Group; Thomas Properties Group, Inc.; CommonWealth Partners, LLC; Buchanan Street Partners; J.P. Morgan Investment Management, Inc.; McCarthy Cook Company; Archon Group LP and the Grand Avenue Joint Powers Authority (a JPA formed by the County of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Redevelopment Agency). Representative deals include the development, financing and leasing of US Bank Tower, Gas Company Tower and Wells Fargo Center in Los Angeles, the acquisition of several million feet of office space in Los Angeles and Orange County, the disposition of 50 acres of land in El Segundo, the sale of several office buildings in Texas, Virginia, and Philadelphia, the creation of a joint venture with a public pension fund for the acquisition of commercial real estate, the development of hotels in Pasadena, Dallas and San Diego; the acquisition of a large portfolio of properties in California and Colorado; the acquisition of Playa Vista in Los Angeles; the negotiation of a $100,000,000 bank line of credit for a public REIT, and the negotiation of a ground lease and development agreement for a large scale hotel, retail, condominium and apartment complex. Mr. Rutter is the author of several articles, has spoken at many seminars and has been consulted as an expert witness in matters involving real estate valuation, and disputes involving real estate transactions. Mr. Rutter has been selected as one of Southern California's Super Lawyers for many years.