AG's Top Man Moves to Boalt Environment

Richard "Rick" Frank is photographed in one of the office hallways lined with photos of lawyers.

The Recorder
By Cheryl Miller
July 28, 2006

SACRAMENTO — Richard "Rick" Frank likes to say his legal career was shaped by being in the right place at the right time.

Ironically, the "right place" 37 years ago for Frank, now the No. 2 lawyer in the state attorney general's office, was the site of one of California's worst environmental disasters. Studying political science at the UC-Santa Barbara, Frank witnessed the impact of the 1969 Union Oil platform blowout, which coated 35 miles of coastline with black goo and killed at least 3,600 seabirds.

As Frank and fellow volunteers cleaned beaches and tried to save oil-covered wildlife, nightly television broadcasts of the devastation angered a nation and led state and federal lawmakers to enact sweeping environmental protection laws.

"It was one of the defining and galvanizing moments of the modern environmental era and I was lucky enough to be there," Frank said. "It was really there, as an undergraduate, that I decided this was an issue that resonated with me and that I'd like to pursue."

Decades later, Frank is a recognized expert in environmental law. His work in the AG's public rights division affects how far visitors can peer into the depths of Lake Tahoe and where sunbathers can tread on the California coastline. His scholarly pieces on the takings clause are studied by law students and lawyers alike. His diplomatic skills allowed him to thrive under five attorneys general and rise to his current position of chief deputy attorney general, where he oversees legal policy in the 1,100-attorney Department of Justice.

And now, after 29 years, Frank is leaving the attorney general's office. In a few weeks he will become the first executive director of Boalt Hall's new California Center for Environmental Law & Policy, where he still expects to work with university experts and law students on answers to water supply conflicts, global warming and other eco-problems.

"These issues aren't going away," he said in a recent interview.

MAKING HIS NAME
Frank's career in the AG's office began in 1977 following brief stints at the Federal Energy Administration and the California Energy Commission. He started in the land law division at a time when the state was taking on a greater role in land-use planning and preservation. One of Frank's early cases was defending the public's right to access the South Fork of the American River after El Dorado County residents tried to curb the whitewater rafting industry there. People v. El Dorado County, 96 Cal.App.3d 403 (1979).

Frank's victory helped establish the precedent that navigable waterways are public resources that should be accessible to everyone.

"I look back now and like many jurisdictions, El Dorado County changed its view," he said. "Now the whitewater rafting industry is welcome."

Jan Stevens, former head of the AG's land-law section, worked with Frank over three decades.

"His energy is a little scary," Stevens said. "I would get e-mails from him dated 2 a.m.

"He had the ability to perform extremely well as a lawyer and at the same time to further the law as a scholar. He did both at once."

In the land-law division, Frank defended the fledgling California Coastal Commission and entered the ongoing fray over efforts to protect Lake Tahoe.

"At the time there was a very contentious atmosphere over whether the casino owners and the developers of subdivisions would run rampant up there," he said. "We played an active role in trying to challenge those who thought that paving over the Lake Tahoe Basin was an excellent idea."

In the early 1980s, Frank helped write legislation that created the California Tahoe Conservancy, a state agency charged with acquiring sensitive land around the lake, funding erosion-prevention projects and improving public access. Frank was the conservancy's first attorney.

He also defended the state as lead counsel in a lawsuit brought by Tahoe-area property owners fighting a development moratorium. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Frank and other defense counsel hired a relatively obscure lawyer to handle their argument. John Roberts, a few years before he became chief justice of that same court, prevailed in 2002, making it easier for government agencies to enact environmental rules around Lake Tahoe and elsewhere. Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 00-1167.

Ryan Davis, staff counsel for the California Tahoe Conservancy, said the results of Frank's work can be seen in open space around the lake.

"There are beautiful, significant properties in Tahoe … preserved as a result of his litigation skills," he said.

After two decades of work in land-use law, Frank co-authored a book on property rights and government regulations called "The Takings Issue." The book is often used as a reference in law schools and among land-use planners.

REACHING THE PEAK
Frank moved his way up the office bureaucracy until, in 2003, Attorney General Bill Lockyer named Frank chief deputy. It was the first time an attorney general had tapped the leader of the public rights division as his chief legal adviser.

"Some of our career criminal prosecutors might have had some questions when I was appointed as to what I might be like," Frank said. "But I've tried to be, and I think I've been, every bit as supportive of their responsibilities and their needs as I have been to other parts of the office."

Frank dismisses his rise to the department's top ranks through five administrations as no big deal, especially in a state that prizes environmental protections. But Andrea Ordin, chief assistant under Attorney General John Van de Kamp, knows better.

"He is extraordinarily diplomatic and takes the long-term approach to issues," Ordin said. "He showed an aptitude for weighing public policy concerns. He was always interested in trying to put a broader perspective on his work than just the individual case that came before him."

Frank insists his new work at Boalt Hall will produce real results. "If this was an esoteric think tank I would frankly not be interested."

"It'll be fun to get back to my first love of environmental and land-use law, which is where I started from. So I'm coming full circle."