b'LEGALUnder Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, the Public Pensions General Counsel Division of the City Attorneys Office (General Counsel) serves as legal counsel to the Department and the Board of Fire and Police Pension Commissioners (Board). General Counsel also provides legal counsel to the Board of Administration of the Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System and the Retirement Board of the Water and Power Employees Retirement Plan. Joshua Geller is leading the Division as Interim Managing Assistant City Attorney, supported by Deputy City Attorneys Miguel Bahamon, Sheri Cheung, Gina Di Domenico, and Ali de Rivera, and by Administrative Coordinator Nicole Paul. This past year, General Counsel provided advice andassistancetotheBoardandtheDepart-ment on a variety of subjects, including fiduciary obligations, the Ralph M. Brown Act, the Califor-nia Public Records Act, pension benefit issues, DeferredRetirementOptionPlan(DROP) issues,taxlawcompliance,ethicslawsand regulations,investmentagreements,general servicecontracts,dataprivacy,anddisability pension applications. Additionally,GeneralCounselrepresentsthe BoardandDepartmentindefensivelitiga-tion, and supervises outside law firms that are engaged by the Board to provide the Depart-ment with regular advice in certain specialized areas,suchasfederalandstatetaxlaws,real estateandalternativeinvestmenttransac-tions, cybersecurity and data privacy, and with occasional representation in complex or special-ized litigation matters, such as bankruptcy cases and securities fraud class actions. 144 LAFPP ANNUAL REPORT 2024'