Watching Over the Champs

 

Welcoming a visitor to his office, Tullos Wells, the San Antonio Spurs’ outside general counsel, points out the team photos spread on the wall beside his nameplate. Then he says, “I’m going to embarrass myself, but let me show you this,” and he ushers his guest into his corner office on the eighth floor of Houston-based Bracewell & Giuliani’s San Antonio branch, where he’s a managing partner.

 

He shows five autographed basketballs stacked in glass display cases and a framed San Antonio jersey — Wells, No. 50 — signed by Spurs greats Tim Duncan and David Robinson, a gift for his 50th birthday that hangs on the wall. Not many lawyers garner those sorts of client perks, not to mention three diamond-encrusted championship rings and plum seats at Spurs games. Wells, a big-time sports fan, finds them especially sweet. “I’m one of 30 guys on the planet who get to do this,” he says. “My life has been more charmed than I deserve.”

 

Wells, who’s trim, with fine blond hair and blue eyes set in a youthful face, looks younger than his 57 years — in part because he recently shed his signature dapper mustache of 30 years. Not long ago, he came home from a party, spotted some gray in the mustache and shaved it off — an unusual move for the characteristically deliberate man. “I’m the least impetuous person you know, so it was a shocker for me to do something like that,” he says.

 

Indeed, his manner is smooth, personable and immediately likable. “He’s one of those people in life who has your best interest at heart, not just as a client but as a person,” says Rick Pych, Spurs executive vice president.

 

Tullos — an old Southern family name passed down from his Louisiana-bred parents — grew up a Yankees, Knicks and Giants fan in Derian, Conn. He and his father, an oil man, would drive upstate and check into a motel to watch Giants games blacked out in the greater New York City area. Wells competed in hockey and football for the Derian Blue Waves, but only ran track when the family moved to Houston before his senior year of high school.

 

He ran his best race — a 9.9-second 100-yard dash — that year, but the kid in the next lane, Clifford Branch, who would go on to star for the Oakland Raiders, smoked him with a 9.3 time. “The gun went off, and Branch was so far down the track before I even got upright, he was so fast,” Wells says with a laugh.

 

He went out for track his first year as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, but, seeing the quality of the competition, decided it would be wise to focus on his journalism major. He worked at the school newspaper and freelanced for the Austin American-Statesman. Upon the advice of an undergrad professor that he develop a specialty, he matriculated at University of Texas Law School to indulge his dual fascinations with communications and law.

 

A couple of media law courses later, he fell in love with communications law. His first job out of law school in 1974, working for the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C., seduced him into abandoning his journalism aspirations for the pursuit of law. The chance to participate in some high-end litigation won him over.

 

In 1978, Wells headed to San Antonio to work on the unsuccessful 1978 gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general John Hill, “the first Democrat in 80-plus years not to get elected,” Wells says.

 

At the same time, he worked as a plaintiffs’ civil rights lawyer at Branton & Mendelsohn. In 1985, he switched to Matthews & Branscomb. A decade later, he and a group of other lawyers from the firm started Wells Pinkney & McHugh. In 1999, Wells joined Bracewell & Patterson, which became Bracewell & Giuliani when former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani came aboard in 2005. Along the way, Wells established himself as a premier labor and employment attorney and an advocate for the San Antonio community.

 

His shot at the NBA came in 1995, when Jack Diller, the Spurs’ new chief executive officer, consulted with Wells, the chairman of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. The two hit it off, and Diller offered Wells the position of outside general counsel for Spurs Sports & Entertainment, which includes the WNBA franchise Silver Spurs and the minor league hockey team the San Antonio Rampage.

 

One of Wells’ early and ambitious efforts was planning and developing the SBC Center, the team’s $200 million arena that opened in October 2002 and was recently renamed the AT&T Center. His deep contacts in the community, business acumen and accomplished people skills helped him finesse negotiations with the city of San Antonio and Bexar County. “He was able to find a compromise, as opposed to just hammering out who has the legal right,” Pych says. “A lot of attorneys try to wait people out or use threats and innuendoes. That’s not his style. His style is to bring people together to find a compromise where you can walk away as partners rather than adversaries.”

 

During that period, his position as the Spurs’ general counsel consumed most of his time. These days, his duties for the team account for about 20 percent of his practice. He also has serviced clients ranging from IBM to Continental Airlines and serves as the honorary consul of Canada, promoting Canadian economic interests in Texas. But the 20 percent of his time involved with the sports’ teams easily accounts for 80 percent of his enjoyment practicing law.

 

As the Spurs’ outside general counsel, he handles the range of legal issues that affect any corporation. The organization has come to rely on him not only for his legal knowledge but also for his business sense. He has become part of the team’s strategic group. “There are two kinds of lawyers,” Pych says. “Ones who tell you what you can’t do and ones who tell you what you can do. Tullos is one of those who always figures out a way to get your objective accomplished.”