Faculty Profiles
general • courses • teaching evaluations • cv • publications
Richard Frank
Title: Lecturer in Residence
Office: 358 Boalt Hall
Tel: 510-642-8305
Email Address: rfrank@law.berkeley.edu
FSU Contact: Areca Sampson
Richard Frank joined Boalt Hall in 2006 from the California Department of Justice, where he served as the chief deputy attorney general for legal affairs. Frank was the Attorney General's principal liaison to state government, the Legislature and judiciary. He is an expert in environmental law, land use, energy issues and property rights. Frank serves as the executive director of the California Center for Environmental Law & Policy (CCELP).
Following law school, Frank worked as a staff attorney for the U.S. Federal Energy Administration in Washington, D.C., for two years. In 1976, he embarked on a 30-year career in California government when he joined the California Energy Commission as a staff counsel. The following year, he began his association with the California Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general in the Land Law Section. In this position, he handled litigation focused on the management of public lands, regional land use planning programs and energy resource development. Frank also held supervisory and senior positions within the Land Law Section, as well as a supervisory post in the Government Law Section. In 1999, he assumed the position of chief assistant attorney general in the Public Rights Division. In 2003, as chief deputy, he became the top legal adviser to the Attorney General, overseeing all civil and criminal litigation within the state Department of Justice.
Frank has taught a seminar at Boalt in California environmental issues since 2005. As a professor at Lincoln Law School of Sacramento since 1982, he has instructed on civil procedure, federal courts, environmental law, negotiations and alternative dispute resolution, and was the recipient of the school's outstanding professor award in 1986. Periodically, he has taught environmental law at UC Davis and the UC Davis School of Law.
His publications include The Takings Issue: Constitutional Limits on Land Use Control and Environmental Regulation (with Meltz and Merriam, 1998); "Inverse Condemnation Litigation in the 1990's - The Uncertain Legacy of the Supreme Court's Lucas and Yee Decisions" in the Journal of Urban & Contemporary Law (1993); "The Public Trust Doctrine" in California Environmental Law (1989); and "Forever Free: Navigability, Inland Waterways and the Expanding Public Interest" in the U.C. Davis Law Review (1983).
Education:
B.A., UC Santa Barbara (1971)J.D., UC Davis (1974)
