California Attorney General Jerry Brown says the state's regulatory framework has "too many rules" for businesses and the courts.

In an interview with Legal Newsline, Brown said the state has so many regulations legislation is sometimes counterproductive.

"The whole framework of law is crucial for the operations of business enterprises," he said. "But when over prescriptive, it creates a huge and growing amount of overhead and it does seem that we're reaching the point of counter-productivity."

An annual Harris Interactive survey of in-house corporate counsel ranked California's legal climate 44th among the states.

Brown spoke with Legal Newsline after delivering an address at the 7th Annual General Counsel West Coast Convention in San Francisco, where he told corporate lawyers the state's environmental and workplace laws and regulations lead to unnecessary litigation.

"We are moving every year to add more and more legal prescription to our lives, to our organizations, to our businesses and how we all function," he said.

"We're overlaid too much with too many rules," Brown said. "The real challenge for lawyers and legislators and chief executives is to do no harm and to add to the system ways that give more elbow room, more flexibility, more discretion, more judgment."

Brown, a former two-term governor of California, is considered the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010.