Born and raised in Colorado, Amy Durfee West graduated sixth in her class in 1979 from the University of Denver College of Law, and was admitted to the Colorado Bar in April 1980. From 1980 until 1987 she was associated with Carpenter and Klatskin, P.C. and with the firm that is now known as Lottner Rubin Fishman Brown and Saul. She then became a supervising attorney in the Denver office of the Federal Asset Disposition Association, which managed and marketed a portfolio of defaulted loans and real estate acquired from failed and failing savings and loan associations; the sales contract form she drafted for the Denver FADA office was adopted by the FDIC when it took over the process in 1990.

Following the closure of FADA by the federal government, Amy Durfee West joined Coopers & Lybrand, where she coordinated legal services under an asset management contract with the Resolution Trust Corporation. After a stint as the corporate real estate counsel for Total Petroleum, she joined Berenbaum, Weinshienk & Eason P.C., where she practiced from 1994 until 2000, and became a shareholder. Her practice emphasized real estate development and redevelopment, leasing, title, land use, and finance. While at Berenbaum, Weinshienk & Eason she served as lead attorney for a "big box" retail development company's Colorado operations, involved in all aspects of acquisition and development process for that client. Other clients included a major home builder, the City of Englewood, entrepreneurs, and individuals.

Amy Durfee West has been special counsel to Moye, Giles, O'Keefe, Vermeire & Gorrell, LLP, drafting and negotiating medical office leases and general office leases, and representing real estate developers in purchasing, selling, financing, and developing real property. After that she was contract attorney for Ireland, Stapleton, Pryor & Pascoe, P.C., assisting with complex, high intensity real estate projects requiring experienced, self-starting, senior counsel. She formed Durfee West P.C. in October, 2002.

Amy Durfee West has served as Council Member, Secretary, Vice-President, and President of the Colorado Bar Association Real Estate Section. In her six years on the Section Council she helped amend a Colorado statute that had (without Bar knowledge or input) implemented an inadvisable methodology for accepting home equity as security for bail bonds. She chaired the Inter-Professional Committee of Lawyers and Realtors as the "Transaction Broker" statute was proposed and passed, and planned a Real Estate Symposium that set an attendance record.

Amy Durfee West was elected as the Denver Bar Association representative to Colorado Bar Association Board of Governors, and served for two years as Chair of the Denver Bar Association Community Concerns Committee. She was President of CREW-Denver (Commercial Real Estate Women) in 2003. She has taught real estate courses at Metropolitan State College and the University of Denver College of Law, and taught legal research and writing for the Denver Paralegal Institute. She is also a frequent lecturer for the Colorado Bar Association and National Business Institute on real estate and asset protection, and has written numerous articles in the Colorado Real Estate Journal on tax-deferred exchanges, water, affordable housing, growth control, and other topics.