Press Releases

BB&K’s Managing Partner Nominated for Law Firm and Water Law Leadership Roles

For Immediate Release: Oct. 17, 2016
Media Contact: Denise Nix • 213-787-2552 • denise.nix@bbklaw.com

LOS ANGELES - We are excited to announce that Best Best & Krieger LLP Managing Partner Eric L. Garner is a finalist for the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Leaders in Law award. Nominated in the Firm Attorney Leadership category, Garner’s nomination is based on both his practice as a leading water rights attorney and the leadership role he has at BB&K.

Garner has practiced water law for nearly 30 years, handling both litigation and transactional matters. This includes the Mojave Groundwater Adjudication, starting in 1990. Garner represented the lead parties in the Santa Maria and Antelope Valley groundwater adjudications in the last decade. He dedicated more than a third of his life to the Antelope Valley Groundwater Adjudication matter, the largest most complex groundwater dispute in California history, recently helping to usher in a trial court judgment resolving the 17-year-long groundwater pumping rights case. This judgment is a means of ensuring the basin will now be sustainably managed.

With California facing a historic drought in 2014, Garner was tapped to lend his knowledge during the drafting of the State’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. He also co-authored two books on water law, “California Water” and “California Water II,” and serves as an adjunct law professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. His work has taken him to South Africa, Trinidad and Pakistan, to draft water laws for nations struggling to allocate limited water supplies. He was the first American to chair the International Bar Association’s Water Law Committee.

At the same time, Garner has, since 2005, been the managing partner of BB&K, one of California’s top water law and public agency firms, with nine offices and nearly 200 attorneys. Garner’s and his leadership team’s commitment to diversity has earned BB&K a spot on Law 360’s 100 Firms for Minority Attorneys list two years running, as well as its Top 50 Firms for Minority Equity Partners list and its Best U.S. Law Firms for Female Attorneys list. BB&K currently holds the number five position on National Law Journal’s Women in Law Scorecard as well.

This is the first time that the L.A. Business Journal has opened its annual Leaders in Law Awards to attorneys in law firms. The Award recognizes accomplishments of leading attorneys and firms within the Los Angeles business community. The winner will be selected for his “exceptional legal skill and achievement across the full spectrum of responsibility, exemplary leadership as evidenced by the highest professional and ethical standards, and for contributions to the Los Angeles community at large,” according to the publication. The winner will be announced at the annual Leaders in Law Awards lunch on Oct. 18 at the JW Marriott Hotel at L.A. Live.


Best Best & Krieger LLP is a national law firm that focuses on environmental, business, education, municipal and telecommunications law for public agency and private clients. With 200 attorneys, the law firm has nine offices nationwide, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.bbklaw.com or follow @BBKlaw on Twitter.