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Researching & Writing on Animal Law?
02/21/2023
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Animal Law

Visit BLS Library’s new research guide

Sully, companion cat to a BLS Library staff member

Seeking sources about how to write a paper for a course like Animal Law?

Visit opening page: Academic Legal Writing

Links to the Fall 2022 BLS Seminar Paper Workshop Video conducted by Associate Librarian/Adjunct Professor Kathy Darvil and Visiting Assistant Professor of Legal Writing Diana Hortsch. Highlights sources on scholarly legal writing and copies of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation available in BLS Library’s Reserve collection.

Looking for overviews of current issues to help you choose a paper topic?

Visit pages: Overviews & Starting Points + Current Awareness

Animal Legal & Historical Center, Michigan State University College of Law provides 90+ Topical Introductions ranging from companion animal issues to wildlife issues. Publication dates vary.

Brooks U (of Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc.) offers Animal Law Fundamentals, a developing collection of current videos and related scholarly papers on:

  • Animals as Property, Quasi-Property or Quasi-Person 
  • Cutting Edge Issues in 21st Century Animal Food Product Labeling 
  • Laboratory Animal Law in the United States: Past, Present and Future 
  • Standing to Protect and Advocate for Animals
  • Wildlife: Related Acts and State Management Issues
  • The Critical Role of States in Farm Animal Confinement and Sales Laws

Brooks Institute and Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School also produce Brooks Animal Law Digest. The two available editions focus on the U.S. and Canada. Digest articles update researchers on key animal law/policy issues and link to the text of pending bills, proposed regulations, case complaints, new studies and many other sources. Review recent issues or click: “View Full Archive” to search an edition of this Digest.

Wishing you could “ask an expert” or could learn more about a hot topic in animal law?

Visit page: Events

Highlights upcoming programs like:

  • March 3, 2023: Wildlife health: what is at stake? (organizer: World Organisation for Animal Health) World Wildlife Day 2023 webinar, registration required. Focus: need for wildlife conservation, current threats to wild animal species.
  • March 9, 2023: Global Animal Law Research (organizer: International Legal Research Interest Group, American Society of International Law) Online, free advance registration required.
  • March 10, 2023: Animal Law Review Symposium (host: Animal Law Review, Lewis & Clark Law School) Primarily virtual. Focus: issues re. legal protection of horses.
  • March 16, 2023: Animal Rescue Law Update ($) (host: New York County Lawyers Association) Online. Focus includes: New York animal law issues. NYCLA allows employees in the public sector, attorneys who can establish financial hardship and unemployed attorneys to apply for tuition assistance to attend its programs. Apply at least one week prior to the program’s date.
  • March 24, 2023: Animals and the Anthropocene: A Legal Scholarship Symposium (co-hosts:  Animal Legal Education Initiative, GW Law, GW Law Environmental and Energy Law Program & GW Law chapter of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund) Website states: “Open to everyone.” Primarily in person w/ limited option to attend remotely.

Tip for law students: Organizations often allow students to attend fee-based programs without charge. Ask!

Needing scholarly legal articles that provide in-depth analysis?

Visit page: Articles

HIghlights useful starting points such as Animal Law Commons and Animal Law eJournal.

Hoping to compare animal protection/welfare laws in different jurisdictions? Seeking model animal protection provisions?

Visit page: Laws

Links to U.S.-focused and globally-focused databases/collections of laws. Notes that ALDF recently published its 2022 U.S. State Animal Protection Laws Rankings Report.

Desiring collections of animal law cases and case-finding tools?

Visit page: Cases

Searching for information about legal careers protecting animals?

Visit page: Careers

Provides information about this free hybrid program on March 8, 2023: Randall Abate, Assistant Dean for Environmental Law Studies at GW Law, Careers in Animal Law (host: DePaul Center for Animal Law). Links to a summary of the New York Courtroom Animal Advocate Program (CAAP) bill written by Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) and a form for those who wish to encourage state representatives to champion this bill. Highlights attorney Stacey Evans’ recent article: Pursuing Pet Health Equity: A Lawyer’s Passion for Pets Prompts Career Switch, 108 A.B.A. J. 28 (2022). (Available through BLS subscription database HeinOnline. Off-campus use requires implementation of the BLS Proxy Server Instructions.) Directs researchers to videos on animal law careers provided by ALDF and Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program. Notes that BLS students also can search BLSConnect for material provided by the Career Development Center.

Wanting help to identify material to support your animal law research? 

Email: askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu or text: (718) 734-2432

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SALDF Hosts Hector the Pit Bull
04/09/2010
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Animal Law

This week, Hector the Pit Bull was the star attraction at Brooklyn Law School for a humane education lecture about pit bull myths. Hector is one of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick’s dog fighting operation and has the external scars of his former life. Now Hector who just turned 6 years old is a certified therapy dog and humane educator and has been recognized for his efforts in his new home in New York. Hector received a Community Service in Humane Education Award from the Brooklyn Law School Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF). 

SALDF, through its President Deborah Diamant, Class of 2010, hosted the event entitled Breed-Specific Legislation: The Pit Bull Placebo featuring speakers Donald Cleary, Director of Communications and Publications for the National Canine Research Council, and Stacey Coleman, Foundation Manager of the Animal Farm Foundation. The presentation included a slide show about the myths surrounding pit bulls. Some jurisdictions, in a frenzy of panic policy making, have outlawed them. Cleary argued the need for changing attitudes toward animal abuse, including toward criminals who fight dogs, and for recognizing the difference between a resident dog and a family dog to foster more enlightened public policy, as well as deepen the human-canine bond. SALDF is one of several studend chapters of the Animal Legal Defense Fund which is dedicated to providing a forum for education, advocacy, and scholarship aimed at protecting the lives and advancing the interests of animals through the legal system, and raising the profile of the field of animal law.

The BLS Library has in its collection several items on the subject of animal rights including Animal Law: Welfare, Interests, and Rights by David S. Favre (Call #KF390.5.A5 F382 2008) with chapters on Animal ownership — Veterinarian malpractice — Damages for harm to pets — State regulation of ownership — Anti-cruelty laws: history and intentional acts — Anti-cruelty laws: duty to provide care — Agricultural animals — Access to courts: standing and legal injury — The Animal Welfare Act — Animal rights: the jurisprudence — Animal rights: the social movement.

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Animal Rights in the News
09/29/2009
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Animal Law

Earlier this month, NY State Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer upheld Local Law 26 for the year 2000 which mandates the existence of full-service animal shelters in all five New York City boroughs. In January 2009, the nonprofit group Stray from the Heart sued the City, alleging that its failure to set up animal shelters in the Bronx and Queens resulted in the “needless suffering and death of homeless cats and dogs.” The complaint charged: “Homeless dogs have been dying in unconscionable numbers because the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has not provided the shelter space required by statute.” Judge Shafer’s Order gave the City 60 days to come up with a plan to implement the law.
 

The blog of the Committee on Animals and the Law of the New York State Bar Association says that Judge Shafer found that the City violated the Animal Shelters and Sterilization Act, NYC CODE § 17-801 and ordered New York City to submit a plan to open animal shelters in all five boroughs and keep those shelters open 24 hours a day, seven days per week to receive and permit the adoption of dogs and cats. Pursuant to the Act, the City was required, but failed to ensure that a full-service animal shelter was maintained in all five boroughs on a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week basis. The City of New York plans to appeal the court’s decision.

The New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Animals and the Law, last month, awarded its second-place award to Andra Waniek (Brooklyn Law School Class of 2009). Her paper, “Protecting Woman’s Best Friend from Family Violence: Proposal for a Model Statute Including Animals in Protective Orders”, addressed legislation concerning inclusion of animals in protective orders. Waniek proposed a federal statute authorizing the inclusion of animals in protective orders that combines and modifies components of several proposed and enacted state statutes and adds a new provision to account for the housing of animals during their owners’ stay at domestic violence shelters. Waniek , who was an Articles Editor at the Brooklyn Law Review during the 2008-2009 academic year, received $500 for her essay.

On the subject of animal rights, the BLS Library has added to its collection a number of interesting items. See Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation by Gary L. Francione (Call # K3620 .F73 2008) the chapters of which include: Introduction: the abolition of animal use versus the regulation of animal treatment — Animals: property or persons? — Reflections on Animals, property, and the law and Rain without thunder — The use of nonhuman animals in biomedical research: necessity and justification — Ecofeminism and animal rights: a review of Beyond animal rights: a feminist caring ethic for the treatment of animals.

See also Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights by Steven M. Wise (Call # HV4708 .W566 2003).

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BLS Library Podcast - Episode 19: Jared Goodman
03/15/2008
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Brooklyn Law School Library, Animal Law, Brooklyn Law School Alumni

Listen to this episode on BrooklynWorks.

This week, the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund hosted a screening of Earthlings, a 95 minute documentary narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. The film is an in-depth examination of factory farming and mankind’s dependence on animals for food, clothing, entertainment and use in experimentation. Using hidden cameras and other footage, the film chronicles the day-to-day practices of industries that rely on animals for profit – industries such as the leather and fur trades, the sports and entertainment industries and the medical and scientific professions. The film also focuses on animal abuse in pet stores, puppy mills and animal shelters. See the trailer.

In this conversation, Jared Goodman, President of the BLS Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, and SALDF member Kathleen Christatos, Class of 2010, discuss the film and the work they do as the local chapter representing the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

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