Law Schools G-M
George Mason University School of Law, Jonathan Lovvorn
Animal Law Seminar. An exploration and discussion of the treatment of captive and wild animals under state, federal, and international law. The course will address the historical status of animals in the law; legislative efforts and citizen initiatives to strengthen animal protection laws; the application of federal laws concerning captive animals, wildlife, and farm animals; the role of international conventions concerning trade in animals and animal products, free trade, and comparative animal protection laws; the limitations on state laws addressing anti-cruelty, hunting, trapping, and animal fighting; the emerging areas of veterinary malpractice and other animal-related torts; the use of consumer protection statutes to address animal welfare concerns; the effect of free speech, religious expression, and other Constitutional principles on animals protection statutes; legal constraints on animal advocacy such as libel and defamation, invasion of privacy, and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act; and the movement to obtain legal recognition of the rights of animals.
George Washington University Law School, Joan Schaffner
Animal Law Lawyering Seminar. This 2-credit co-requisite seminar for students enrolled in the Animal Law Litigation Project, and provides an in-depth, practical treatment of animal law litigation in state and federal courts. The course will address the nature of public interest law and animal protection lawyering; explore ethical issues confronting students and lawyers; discuss the development and nature of strategic public-interest litigation; describe the investigation and construction of a public interest case; explain the limits of public and private enforcement of the law; address the problem of standing for citizens seeking to enforce the law; analyze successful and unsuccessful past cases concerning captive and companion animals, farm animals, and wildlife; discuss available injunctive and monetary remedies; and explore innovative uses of existing laws to expand legal protection of animals.
George Washington University Law School, Jonathan Lovvorn and Nancy Perry
Animal Law and Wildlife Protection Seminar. This 2-credit class is a survey of the treatment of animals in state, federal, and international law. Topics include the historical status of animals; federal statutes such as the Animal Welfare Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act; international conventions, free trade, and comparative animal protection laws; state laws concerning animal cruelty, hunting, animal fighting, and performing animals; free speech, religion, and other constitutional issues; litigation in state and federal courts; citizen initiatives and referenda; and the movement to obtain legal recognition of the rights of animals.
Georgetown University Law Center, Colman McCarthy
Law, Conscience and NonViolence Seminar. This seminar develops the student's awareness of nonviolence as a personal and political force and examines the law and conscience as exercised by such peacemakers as Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Einstein, A.J. Muste, Tolstoy, and others. The course texts include "Strength Through Peace: The Ideas and People of Nonviolence" and "Solutions to Violence." Course topics cover civil disobedience, the death penalty, Gandhian conflict resolution, pacifism and warism, nonviolence towards animals, and the difference between legal violence done by the state (war, executions, habitat destruction) and illegal violence done by an individual (murder, property destruction, stealing). The class is discussion-based, with dissent welcome.
Georgetown University Law Center, Jonathan Lovvorn
Animal Protection Litigation Seminar. This seminar explores the process of animal protection litigation in an effort to better understand the status and treatment of animals in the courts. Focusing on both reported cases and actions now pending before state and federal courts, the seminar will address the complex nature of litigation concerning animals; explore the unique ethical issues confronting lawyers practicing animal law; discuss the development and nature of strategic animal protection litigation; describe the investigation and construction of animal protection cases; explore the limits of public and private enforcement of animal laws; analyze successful and unsuccessful past cases concerning captive and companion animals, farm animals, and wildlife; discuss available injunctive and monetary remedies; and explore innovative uses of existing laws to expand legal protection of animals.
Georgetown University Law Center, Valerie Stanley
Animal Law Seminar. Examines the realities of life and death for animals used for experimentation, food, entertainment and sport and introduces the federal and state laws governing, and purporting to protect animals used for these purposes. Examines whether these laws accomplish their purposes through a review of relevant case law and other materials. Addresses the societal, legislative, and judicial mechanisms that maintain animals as property by reviewing and comparing the personal accounts of advocates who have battled government and corporate institutions to affect societal change in other areas. A significant portion of the course will address and discuss standing, a potential problem facing those who seek to litigate on behalf of rightless plaintiffs. Standing and legal rights for animals are also addressed.
Golden Gate University, Althea Kipps
Animal and Wildlife Law. This course begins with a discussion of the ethical bases for legal protection of individual animals and wildlife populations, focusing on where different ethical premises create conflicts over animal protection. The course then reviews several wildlife protection laws, including the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and California's Fully Protected Species Statutes. Finally, the course reviews the legal protections available to individual animals, from their status of property to standing for animals to their ethical treatment in domestic, agricultural, and laboratory settings. Several of San Francisco's unique statutes protecting animals will be reviewed, as well as recent bills proposed in Sacramento pertaining to animal and wildlife law.
Green Mountain College, Sam Edwards
Animal Law and Policy. This is an upper division course in the general education
program (environmental liberal arts) and an elective course in the animal
studies program and pre-law program. The students are going to be working on a service
learning project to help draft a policy to make the dining services
"cruelty free" in all of the animal products they serve. This will make Green Mountain the first in the
country with contracted dining services to implement such a policy.
Harvard Law School, Paul Waldau
Animal Law. This is a basic course in animal law in which the student engages a broad range of cases, legislation, and concepts as they pertain to nonhuman animals. After a brief introduction on the history and current status of nonhuman animals in the U.S. legal system, the first part of the course examines substantive law in the areas of property, contracts, torts, wills and trusts, and criminal law. Woven throughout the discussion of substantive law are comments and questions regarding current cultural attitudes towards animals outside the human species.
Hastings College of the Law, Bruce Wagman
Animal Law. A survey of the law's understanding and treatment of animals by looking at the development of federal and state policies towards wild, domestic, and companion animals. Specific topics may include the history of animal law, the concept of animals as property, the application of tort and remedies law to injuries by and to pets, protection of animals by anti-cruelty and other laws, and constitutional issues raised in cases involving animals. The course incorporates legal concepts from other fields, encourages critical thought and new approaches to doctrines developed in other areas, and addresses a broadened integration of the realities of animals and society with the particularities of the law.
Hofstra University School of Law, John DeWitt Gregory
Animal Law. This survey course serves as an introduction to animal law and covers a broad range of cases, legislation and concepts as they pertain to nonhuman animals. Topics include a historical summary of the origins of animal law, and substantive law in the areas of property, contracts, torts, wills and trusts, and criminal law as they pertain to animals. Some specific topics include the concept of animals as property, the application of tort and remedies law to injuries by and to pets, protection of animals by statutes, and constitutional issues raised in cases involving animals. Various federal and state legislation impacting animals such as animal protection laws, the transportation of animals and xoological parks are examined. Students will write a paper on a current issue of animal law in lieu of a final exam, and will present their papers in class.
Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis, Judith Ford Anspach
Animals and the Law. This course explores the historical and evolving legal status of non-human animals. Students will examine cases, arising in a variety of contexts, in which the resolution of the dispute depends upon policy decisions about the nature of non-human animals.
Lewis and Clark Law School, Pamela Frasch, Katherine Hessler
Animal Law. This course in animal law will introduce students to those principles, rules, and regulations -- as developed by common law and from statute -- that affect animals. Starting with a summary of historical origins, the course will examine such laws in their philosophical and practical underpinnings, and from a variety of differing perspectives, exploring how the law has treated animals in the past and may treat them in the future, both locally and nationally. From the foundational (How are animals defined? Can animals have standing? Are animals property?) to the pragmatic (What procedural obstacles might confront claims made on behalf of animals? What substantive constraints might prosecuting an animal cruelty case entail?) the course will address diverse questions and answers in such areas as contract and tort; protections under criminal and civil statutes; cruelty and abuse laws; legal standing for animals; treatment of laboratory animals; ownership and valuation issues; custody areas; and ethical and legal dilemmas posed by the capture, confinement, and commercial use of animals.
Lewis and Clark Law School,, Katherine Hessler
Animal Law Seminar. The field of animal law has exploded in recent years, with a particularly high level of activity in the areas of standing; will and trusts benefiting animals; anti-cruelty laws; and non-economic damages for harm done to companion and other animals. Throughout the semester, the course will explore the latest cases, legislation and legal theory developing in these areas. The course keeps a tight focus on just a few issues throughout the seminar to allow a greater depth of learning and understanding in those select areas. As the field continues to develop, the "hot" legal issues may, and probably will, shift. The seminar will be structured in such a way that students will also have the opportunity to learn about and study these newer developments.
Lewis and Clark Law School, Jami Pannell
Animal Law Clinic. The Animal Law Clinic (ALC) provides clinical training to second, third and fourth-year students. The ALC's emphasis is on state litigation, but often includes administrative actions, transactional matters, federal litigation, lobbying, and regulatory matters. Students will learn to interview and counsel clients; research and draft pleadings and motions; attend court hearings and trials; and otherwise advocate for clients. Students will participate in a weekly 2-hour class covering substantive issues and lawyering skills, meet with the Staff Attorney as needed, and spend an average of 8-10 hours per week on assigned work. In addition to discussions regarding animal protection lawyering, classes will provide opportunities for students to engage in mock lawyering tasks to hone their interviewing, negotiating, counseling, trial advocacy, and persuasive skills. While the ALC will not include an ethics portion for credit, students will be exposed to and will learn professionalism and conflicts issues critical to being an effective animal advocate. The ALC takes cases that maximize the students' opportunities to learn animal lawyering skills. Students will also learn the opportunity to work with attorneys and organizations nationwide to gain broad exposure to careers in animal law.
Lewis and Clark Law School, Chris Wold
International Wildlife Law
Loyola Law School
Animal Law. This course will focus on the evolution, interpretation and enforcement of laws relating to the use and treatment of animals in our society; evaluation of whether, how and why such laws should be modified; and the possible ramifications of such change. The course will cover a wide array of animal law issues, including the legal classification of animals as property, loss of companionship/emotional distress, veterinary malpractice, anti-cruelty laws, constitutional standing to sue on behalf of animals, and the development of laws relating to commercial uses of animals.
Massachusetts School of Law, Diane Sullivan
Animal Law
Mercer University School of Law, Richard Creswell
Animal Law Seminar. This seminar will examine the growing number of cases and statutes addressing the legal protections accorded to non-human animals. The subject of animal law is not synonymous with the animal rights movement, nor with any particular political, moral, or ethical agenda. Recent activism in this field, however, has raised a number of interesting questions about the status of animals in the law. Attention will be given to statutory protections for chimpanzees, porpoises, and the great apes, regulatory restrictions on the uses of laboratory animals, lawsuits seeking compensation for the loss of companionship of pets, wills creating trusts for the non-human beneficiaries, and animal cruelty and neglect statutes and their potential application to domestic livestock, veterinary practice, the entertainment industry, and hunting, horseracing and other sports. The course will consist of assigned readings of cases and secondary material and the supervised preparation of a research paper on a topic of each student's choosing. Seniors only. Graded. Enrollment limited to 15.
Michigan State University College of Law, David Favre
Wildlife Law. A study of the legal system's impact on wildlife. The primary focus will be on recent laws and cases and, in particular, the Endanger Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Michigan State University College of Law, David Favre
Animal Law. A survey of animal legal issues including property status, zoning, and cruelty laws. Paper required.
