Douglas R. Tueller

Douglas R. Tueller is a Director in Fennemore’s Real Estate, Land Use, Business and Finance, and Natural Resources practice group with more than four decades of experience advising businesses, developers, investors, and other organizations on real estate business matters. His practice draws on extensive experience with real estate acquisition, land use development, and related investment, corporate operations, complex financial transactions, and general counsel work, including domestic and international business ventures.

Doug has served as general counsel and senior management counsel for privately held real estate development and investment companies, advising on projects ranging from residential associations to complex mixed-use, commercial, residential, resort hospitality, and retail developments – including historic preservations – throughout the Western United States. His work reflects a broad understanding of the legal, business, and operational considerations involved in acquiring, developing, investing in, managing, and operating real estate assets.

Before joining Fennemore, Doug practiced with prominent national and international  law firms in California and Colorado and served as special counsel to The Disney Store Group during its initial based international expansion. He began practicing law in 1983, and since moving to Telluride in 1992 and has  served as a founding partner of Tueller Law, PC and Tueller Gibbs Dye, LLP, the latter based in Telluride and  Denver. His experience advising businesses and organizations across multiple jurisdictions and with multiple areas of focus gives him a broad perspective on complex real estate and business matters.

Doug also has extensive experience serving nonprofit and community organizations in Colorado, California, Nevada, and internationally. He has held leadership positions with Rotary International, including chairing the Rotary International Post-Graduate Fellowship program in Colorado for more than a decade and leading the Colorado statewide Rotary District Scholarship Committee since the early 1990s. He was elected chairman of the Telluride Rotary Foundation in 2014 and has served in connection with the Colorado Bar Association Real Estate Section Committee since 2016. He also played a pivotal role in the formation of the Town of Mountain Village near Telluride in the early 1990s and the historic Town of Telluride Valley Floor Condemnation in the early 2000s.

Doug currently serves as general counsel to the Just for Kids Foundation, the Pinhead Institute, Telluride Arts and Humanities, Mountains to Desert, and the Lone Tree Cemetery in Telluride. His community  involvement also includes more than a decade of service on public education committees within the Telluride R-1 School District.

Doug’s academic background includes undergraduate study at the University of Southern California and the University of Vienna, legal studies at Stanford Law School and the University of Hamburg in Germany, and research at the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg as a Rotary Ambassadorial Fellow. His international education and professional experience inform his approach to complex real estate and business matters involving domestic and international interests.

• J.D., Stanford Law School
• A.B., magna cum laude, University of Southern California
• Guest Scholar, Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Law, Hamburg, Germany
• Rotary Foundation International Graduate Fellow
• Translation and Related Studies, University of Vienna, Austria and University of Hamburg, Germany

• Director and Executive Vice-President and General Counsel of McKellar Development Group, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Founder, Vice-President and General Counsel, Real Asset Management, Chicago, Illinois and Las Vegas, Nevada
• Legal Counsel, The Disney Stores, Inc., Glendale, California
• Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of Carstens Development, Telluride, CO

• Best Lawyers in America^®, Real Estate Law, 2027
• Martindale-Hubbell, A-V Rating
• Recipient of District Global Alumni Service Awards 2004-2006, Rotary District 5470
• Carl Mason Award for Outstanding International Law Work, Stanford Law School
• Finalist for the Business for the Arts Award with the Colorado Business Council for the Arts

• Member, Colorado Bar Association Real Estate Section Council
• L.B.J. Congressional Intern, Washington, D.C.
• International Volunteer, Kibbutz Lahav, Israel
• Intern for the Chief Justice of the Court for International Justice, Hamburg, Germany
• Nevada Foreign Trade Zone, Person-to-Poland Aid Effort, Nevada Zoological Society, Stanford-U.N.L.V. Symposium on Art and The Law, Las Vegas, Nevada
• German-American Chamber of Commerce, Japan America Society, AIDS Hospice, Los Angeles, California
• Organizing Member, Town of Mountain Village Home Charter Drafting Committee and Election Commission
• Town of Mountain Village Councilman
• Chairman of Rotary Foundation District 5470 Scholarship Committee – Colorado, Telluride Rotary Club Scholarship Committee and Telluride Rotary Foundation
• Founder/Legal Counsel for The Pinhead Institute (a Smithsonian Institute Affiliate), Just For Kids Foundation, Mountains-to-Desert Bike Ride, Telluride, Colorado
• Legal Counsel for Telluride Science and Research Center, Ah Haa School for the Arts, Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, Telluride Tech Festival and Telluride Gay Ski Week, Telluride, Colorado
• Moderator for various Town of Telluride Election-and Participant in Valley Floor Condemnation Public Debates

•  Multiple presentations at RESC Annual Real Estate Symposium, Vail, Colorado, 2020 and 2024
• Moderator and Organizer, “Art, Real Estate, and the Law in Telluride, Colorado,” RESC Symposium
• Author, “Buyers and Brokers Beware: The Contract-Deeding Trap for the Unwary,” The Colorado Lawyer, March 2016
• Author, “Reporting and Disclosure Requirements for the Foreign Investor in U.S. Real Estate,” Foreign Direct Investment in the U.S., Sweet & Maxwell, 1993, also in French, German, Italian and Spanish
• Author, “Reaching and Applying Foreign Law in West Germany: A Systemic Study,” Stanford Journal of International Law, Vol. 19, Spring 1983. Used as materials in a course on the West German Legal System at the University of Chicago Law School
• Author, “Problems of Arbitration of International Contract Disputes and Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in the Federal Republic of Germany: A Recent Decision of the Bundesgerichtshof.” Stanford Journal of International Law, Vol. 17, Spring 1981
• Translated into English from German, Wolfgang Hoffman-Riem, “The Freedom of Communications and the Future of Broadcasting in West Germany.” Translated for publication in Studies in Broadcasting, Nov. 17, 1981, Nippon Hoso Kyokai, Japan
• Translated into English from German, Manfred Rehbinder, Rechtssoziologie, de Gruyter, 1978,  for publication in the U.S., 1981-1982

• California
• Colorado

• German