The Animal Legal Education Initiative

Animal Law matters for many reasons. First, of course, it leads to the protection of the animals with whom we share the planet and who we use for a variety of purposes: entertainment, research, education, companionship, food, etc. Second, without healthy animals, the environment is harmed and humans also suffer as a result. Third, positive and appropriate human relationships with animals supports the well-being of both. Fourth, Animal Law is an evolving area of scholarship and practice. Due to the ubiquity of the presence and use of animals, almost every area of the law also includes elements of Animal Law. To be a competent attorney or scholar one must understand the areas of overlap and be able to address them.

Because Animal Law is important, teaching and learning about Animal Law is necessary. In addition to learning about Animal Law specifically or as it relates to other areas of law (contracts, property, torts, constitutional law, evidence, administrative law, wills and trusts, environmental law, international law, criminal law, wildlife and natural resources law, law of the ocean, etc.), students who study Animal Law also benefit from an overview of how the law operates, how it evolves and changes, and when it doesn’t work well. This type of specific and structural overview is great preparation for the bar exam.

An Animal Law course also helps students consider intersectionality in the law, vulnerable populations, trauma, law reform, structural change as it relates to social consensus, and many more important concepts. Because animals are present in our everyday lives, the topics are very accessible, always relevant, and never static.

ALEI is a unique endeavor in legal education. While there are two centers focused on improving law teaching generally, and a handful of Animal Law programs, there is no program focused on the development of a discipline that comprehensively addresses Animal Law scholarship, curriculum development, and policy. ALEI is designed to fill this void—focusing on Animal Law scholarship, education, and the development of an Animal Law discipline more broadly, while simultaneously providing opportunities for students to learn and practice Animal Law. ALEI does not compete with existing Animal Law programs, but instead includes them in a collaborative consortium – the Council on Animal Legal Education.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund recognizes that its ongoing work, the work of other animal protection organizations, and the development of Animal Law all depend on having knowledgeable and skilled attorneys in the legal academy, legal practice, and in the nonhuman animal protection movement. Therefore, it chose to support ALEI in its foundational work ensuring Animal Law is fully integrated into the legal academy as a legal discipline and that law schools have the resources they need to train Animal Law attorneys by supporting the position of the Assistant Dean which is now the Joseph and Rosemary Todino Assistant Dean, Animal Legal Education Initiative.

The mission of the Animal Legal Defense Fund is to protect the lives and advance the interests of nonhuman animals through the legal system. The Animal Legal Defense Fund accomplishes this mission by filing high-impact lawsuits to protect nonhuman animals from harm, providing free legal assistance and training to prosecutors to assure that animal abusers are held accountable for their crimes, supporting tough animal protection legislation and animal fighting legislation harmful to nonhuman animals, and providing resources and opportunities to law students and professionals to advance the emerging field of Animal Law.

In 2019, Kathy Hessler, concerned about declining support for animal law courses in the U.S., hosted an Animal Law Summit at Lewis & Clark Law School, where she was the Director of the Animal Law Clinic and the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative. The goal of the Summit was to consider the role of animal law in legal education, assess whether there was declining institutional support, and consider strategies to improve its sustainability and growth. Stacey Gordon Sterling, one of the faculty members who attended the Summit, was also concerned about the lack of support for animal legal education. Stacey became the Director of the Animal Law Program at the Animal Legal Defense Fund and worked to gain financial support to develop a new program. She consulted with Kathy who suggested a program focused on the integration of animal law within the legal academy.

Stacey and Kathy worked with Joan Schaffner to partner with The George Washington University Law School, building on the school’s twenty-year history of offerings in animal law. They then also worked with Iselin Gambert and others at GW Law to help guide the program to approval.

ALEI was approved by GW Law and ALDF committed to support the Assistant Dean position in 2021. GW Law conducted a national search for an Assistant Dean to lead the Animal Law program and direct ALEI and selected Kathy Hessler.

The first ALEI event was co-sponsoring the Fall 2022 Animal Law Symposium with ALDF. Sadly, Stacey passed away in December 2022 after a mighty and courageous battle with cancer. She is greatly missed, but her work to create ALEI lives on and will result in the support of students, programming, scholarship, curricular development, collaborative academic efforts, and the improvement of the lives of countless animals.