[1] He graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1959 with great honors and earned membership in Phi Beta Kappa.
After 20 years as a trial judge, in 2002 Pollak was appointed to the California Court of Appeal in the First Appellate District by then-Governor Gray Davis.
In May 1995, he decided the University of California, San Francisco, could release formerly confidential research reports on the negative health effects of smoking tobacco.
[7] In July 2000, he presided over a racial discrimination trial against the nation's largest wholesale bakery that resulted in a jury verdict of $120 million for a group of black employees.
[8] In November 2000, he ruled in favor of EBay on the issue of liability for bootlegged music sold on its website.