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Council on Animal Legal Education (CALE)

Council Leadership

Kathy Hessler

About the Council

The Animal Legal Education Initiative (ALEI) is working to better integrate, grow, and sustain animal legal education within the academy. The Council on Legal Education (CALE) is an essential part of this work. CALE works to foster conversations and develop strategies to advance the work that needs to be done to support animal legal education in a number of ways, including:

  • Supporting the development of animal law curricular offerings at GW Law and schools around the country and the world
  • Providing webinars, workshops, and other resources to help adjunct animal law professors with their work
  • Collaborating with ALDF and Coolidge High School to develop and offer resources suitable for high school students and teachers
  • Working with law faculty to integrate and address animal law issues within their areas of teaching and scholarship

Law schools often will not support animal legal education, but will instead accept outside funding for programs and have adjunct professors teach their courses, or may allow tenured professors who so choose to teach in the area. Now, fewer law schools seem to be offering animal law courses than in the past and there is no guarantee that current courses or programs will all be maintained at their current staffing levels.

ALEI, through the Council on Legal Education, will work to support three different groups of animal law teachers: full-time employees of a school teaching animal law; adjunct professors; and faculty members who teach other topics but may be interested in incorporating animal law into their work. The focus of CALE will first include those who teach in the US and will eventually grow to include faculty outside of the US.

CALE events include:

Past Events

Follow us for our Adjunct Teachers in Animal Law webinar series!

Council on Animal Legal Education at GW Law