BB&K In The News

The Daily Journal Profiles Grover Trask and BB&K's Ethics Practice

RIVERSIDE _ Grover Trask got his first big ethics lesson as a newbie prosecutor with the Riverside County District Attorney's office.

It was a theft case in which an informant was the main witness against the defendant. But Trask said when the defendant testified, he seemed more honest than the informant.

The jury convicted the man, but Trask couldn't sleep afterward. At Trask's request, the
defendant took and passed a polygraph. A judge granted his office's motion for a mistrial and dismissed the case.

Thirty-five years later, ethics are still front and center for Trask, who retired at the beginning of 2007 after nearly a quarter-century as the county's top prosecutor to become special counsel for Best Best & Krieger in Riverside. As head of the firm's Public Policy and Ethics Group - one of only a handful of such legal niches at law firms statewide - the 62-year-old Trask is becoming one of the state's go-to independent investigators on public officials' ethics compliance.

From Riverside to Sacramento, he's launched probes on behalf of dozens of school and utility districts, cities, counties and private companies on issues including whether employees or elected officials ran afoul of federal, state or local policies. His findings have triggered major administrative changes, and in some instances, civil or criminal filings.

Click here to read the entire story. (Subscriber-only Web site)