Pamela Alexander
Ms. Alexander is an attorney and Director of the Animal Law Program at the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF). In this capacity, she oversees programs dedicated to facilitating and fostering the development of animal law in academia and legal practice. These programs include supporting over one hundred Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) chapters; collaborating with students, faculty, and law school administrations to develop animal law courses; coordinating ALDF's extensive Attorney Volunteer Network; and partnering with pro bono coordinators and attorneys interested in developing
animal law opportunities at their firms. Prior to joining ALDF, Ms. Alexander was in private practice and co-taught the first animal law course at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. While in law school, she co-founded Wisconsin United for Furry Friends (WUFF), a non-profit animal welfare organization dedicated to recognizing the role of companion animals in family violence.
Congressman Earl Blumenauer
Congressman Earl Blumenauer (Ore-3) is a leader on animal protection. He first served in the Oregon House of Representatives in 1972. From there Congressman Blumenauer went on to be a Multnomah County Commissioner and spent ten years on the Portland City Council as Commissioner of Public Works. His innovative accomplishments in transportation, planning, environmental programs and public participation have helped Portland earn an international reputation as one of America’s most livable cities – places where people are safe, healthy and economically secure.
Elected to the US House of Representatives in 1996, Congressman Blumenauer is committed to promoting livable communities at the federal level. A member of the Ways and Means Committee, the Budget Committee and the new Select Committee on Energy Independence and Climate Change, he is a strong and creative voice both at home and abroad for the environment, sustainable development, and economic opportunity. Congressman Blumenauer has authored and co-sponsored legislation to preserve and protect public lands, shift the nation’s energy policy towards renewable energy and energy efficiency, curb global warming and clean our nation’s water bodies, among many others.
Congressman Blumenauer was named a German Marshall Fellow in 1995 and has won numerous awards from environmental, education, community, and civic organizations, including 1999 Legislator of the Year from the American Planning Association, the National Building Museum's Apgar Award in 2000, the Public Radio Leadership Award from National Public Radio in 2005, One of “The Top 25 Change Agents in Bicycling History,” from the League of American Bicyclists in 2005, and the Public Official’s Award from the Water Environment Federation in 2006. Congressman Blumenauer’s academic training includes undergraduate and law degrees from Lewis and Clark College in Portland.
Tamara Bond
Tamara Bond is General Counsel for Animals Asia Foundation, a Hong Kong-based non-profit organization working to restore respect and end cruelty for animals in Asia. Animals Asia's best-known project is the China Bear Rescue, which is rescuing endangered Asiatic Black Bears from the cruel conditions they suffer on bear bile farms in China and Vietnam.
Tamara has worked extensively to promote change in Hong Kong's animal welfare legislation. She was recently selected to represent the Hong Kong No Kill City Forum on a joint government-NGO panel that will undertake a comprehensive review of all statutes affecting the welfare of animals in Hong Kong. Prior to working for Animals Asia, Tamara served as an attorney with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. She has lived and worked in Asia for more than 9 years, including 2 years in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Karen Breslin
Karen Breslin is an attorney whose law firm, the Progressive Law Center, in Lakewood, Colorado, has an emphasis in animal law. Breslin is co-lead counsel in Dias v. City and County of Denver, a federal lawsuit challenging Denver’s breed specific ban which targets not just “pit bull” breeds, but any dog with “the majority of physical characteristics” of prohibited breeds. Denver has killed some 1,500 dogs since the ordinance was reinstated in April 2005. Breslin serves as a volunteer attorney for Rocky Mountain Animal Defense and is a senior instructor of political science at the University of Colorado at Denver where she also directs the Earth Politics & Law Program. Breslin is also employed as chief of communications and legislation for the Intermountain Region of the National Park Service. Previously, she was a staff correspondent and a Capitol Hill reporter with the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) Inc.
Tim Canova
Tim Canova is a law professor and academic dean at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, CA, where he teaches courses in Animal Law and Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection, and studies the impact of corporate power and global trade on human rights and animal welfare. He has written critically about the World Trade Organization, including the WTO’s shrimp-turtle and tuna-dolphin cases. He has advocated for shareholder proposals to stop the torture of farm animals by large corporate agribusinesses, as well as for a change in standing doctrine to provide legal guardian protection in our courtrooms for animals.
Bethany Cotton
Bethany Cotton is a third year law student at Lewis & Clark Law School, J.D. expected May 2008, certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, specialization in Animal Law. This summer Bethany attended the Fourteenth Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) in The Hague, Netherlands as a student in the International Environmental Law Project (IELP), a legal clinic housed at Lewis & Clark. With IELP she worked specifically on issues related to trade in elephants, rhinoceros and tigers. Bethany is a Co-Director of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC) at Lewis & Clark.
Mark L. Cushing
Mark Cushing is a partner of Tonkon Torp LLP in Portland, Oregon. He is chair of the firm's Government Relations and Public Policy Practice Group. He returned to Portland in 2006 after serving as a partner in the Washington, DC office of Sonnenschein, Nash & Rosenthal. A long-time political strategist, corporate executive and trial lawyer, Mark focuses his advocacy practice on providing high-level strategic advice and services to clients with needs at any level of government in the U.S. and Canada. Since early 2005, Mark has devoted a significant portion of his practice toward improving pet-care, implementing a microchipping policy for pets, equine importation, and more recently has been very actively involved with pet-food recall issues. Mark serves as Government Counsel for Banfield, the Pet Hospital, advises the National Animal Interest Alliance and is involved in a variety of animal welfare issues for private clients.
Courtney Dillard
Courtney Dillard currently teaches in the Rhetoric and Media Studies Department at Willamette University. Her classes: professional/presentationalspeaking, public speaking, and mass media & persuasion, emphasize theimportance and power of effective communication. For over 10 years, Courtneyhas focused her research on the animal advocacy movement, with a particular emphasis on the effectiveness of its discourse. She wrote her master's thesis on the protest surrounding the pigeon shoot in Hegins, PA and her dissertation on the rhetorical relationship between moderates and radicals in the movement. Courtney has combined her academic pursuits with a commitment to engaged activism. She regularly offers trainings to animal and environmental activists, focusing on effective persuasion tools. In addition, she and her brother, Carter Dillard, founded Four Feet Forward in 2001. FFF, which has close to a dozen consultants, offers pro-bono legal and communication assistance to grassroots animal organizations.
Robert H. Fennessy
Attorney Robert Fennessy’s animal law career has spanned nearly a quarter of a century. From 1978 through 2001, Attorney Fennessy worked for the MSPCA Law Enforcement Department as a special state police officer, holding the rank of animal abuse investigator, prosecutor, Captain, and Deputy Chief. In 2002, Mr. Fennessy was admitted to practice in Massachusetts, and shortly thereafter opened a solo law practice in Walpole, MA. It was only logical that animal law cases would follow him into his new profession.
A graduate of Northeastern University, Boston University, and the Southern New England School of Law, Attorney Fennessy now teaches Animal Law and Rights course, and Municipal Law course at the Southern New England School of Law, where he is an adjunct faculty member. In August 2007, Attorney Fennessy was honored by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as an “Up and Coming Lawyer for 2007.”
Robert Ferber
A graduate of Columbia Law School in 1977, Bob is a 27 year prosecutor for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, Previous assignments (before implementing and supervising his Animal Protection Unit) included creation of and supervisor of a special Vice Enforcement Unit that reduced Los Angeles street prostitution by 99% from 1981-3. Also, was the Supervisor of Anti-Gang Unit and first prosecutor in nation to obtain civil court injunctions against street gangs (as unincorporated associations) that reduced neighborhood crime by 90%, a law enforcement tool now used in cities nationwide. In 2001, created, with support from L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, what is believed to be the first specialized animal welfare prosecution unit in the nation, the LA City Attorney Animal Protection Unit. In addition to Supervising the Unit and being the only prosecutor to exclusively prosecute animal cruelty cases, Bob also persuaded L.A. City to create a 14 member animal cruelty task force, making Los Angeles the first and possibly only city with dedicated “animal cops” and seven prosecutors working together to investigate and prosecute animal neglect and cruelty. In fact, the L.A. District Attorney’s Office recently followed suit and designated special prosecutors for felony animal abuse. Bob oversees the City prosecutions of animal abuse and neglect and is now working on legislation, locally and statewide, to provide more law enforcement tools to abate dogfighting and cockfighting. This semester Bob is relying upon the full-time assistance of student extern, Leslie Joyner, a IIIL of Lewis & Clark, who hopes to also make a career out of prosecuting animal and abuse.
Bob lives in Calabasas,California with his rescued special needs dogs, cats, hamsters, and Jellybeaner, his rat, which he brings to nursing homes, schools and other events, teaching reverence for life and respect for our many differences. Bob welcomes inquiries and requests for assistance and guidance and invites law students to consider an externship with his Cruelty Unit in Los Angeles. He can be reached at 310-202-3839 or Robert.Ferber@lacity.org.
Pamela Frasch
Ms. Frasch is an attorney and Vice President of Legal Affairs for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. In that capacity, she serves as ALDF’s general counsel and oversees ALDF’s Criminal Justice and Litigation Programs. The Criminal Justice Program (which Ms. Frasch created when she first joined ALDF in 1996) assists prosecutors and others in law enforcement in their efforts to investigate, prosecute and sentence animal abusers. The Litigation Program brings civil actions to advance and protect the interests of animals in the legal system. In addition to her duties with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Ms. Frasch is the co-editor of the first American legal casebook in the field, Animal Law, Cases and Materials (3rd Ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2006), and is an adjunct Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School where she teaches survey and advanced courses in animal law. Ms. Frasch is the author of Oregon’s first felony anti-cruelty law, a frequent speaker on animal law issues and is the author or co-author of various articles in the field.
Chris Green
Chris Green is a graduate of Harvard Law School, a Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee, and on the Board of Advisors for the National Center for Animal Law. He is also a member of the American Veterinary Medical Law Association, the Committee on Legal Issues Pertaining to Animals–Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and the Illinois Farm Bureau. Chris recently wrote The Future of Veterinary Malpractice Liability in the Care of Companion Animals, which was published in the 10th Anniversary Issue of the journal Animal Law, and he also won first prize at the inaugural National Animal Advocacy Competition held at Harvard in 2004. Green has consulted on animal legal issues for CBS News, 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC, Smart Money, the Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post, and frequently lectures on civil damages/animal valuation matters at veterinary colleges and law schools around the nation. Chris participated in the California Veterinary Medical Association’s Non-Economic Recovery Task Force, helping the organization explore legislative options to address the profession’s increasing liability exposure, and later acted as an advisor to the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Task Force on the Legal Status of Animals, addressing those same issues at the national level. Chris currently divides his time between New York City and Illinois, where he manages a farm that has been in his family for 169 years. He additionally is the host of a PBS television program and has produced several award-winning documentary films.
Noah Greenwald
Noah Greenwald, M.S. is a conservation biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, where he has spent the last ten years assessing impacts to imperiled species from logging, grazing, urbanization and increasingly climate change, and based on these assessments, working to obtain protection for species under the Endangered Species Act. He holds a B.S. in ecology from the Evergreen State College and an M.S. in forest ecology and conservation from the University of Washington. His master's work focused on studying climate driven changes in forest vegetation during the Holocene.
Kristina Haddad
Kristina Haddad is Senior Program Associate for both the Climate Policy Program at the New America Foundation and for Seventh Generation Advisors, a non profit who works to preserve the environment by advocating policy and promoting a sustainable economy. In these capacities, she is working to help create a national response to climate change by building state and local climate action plans. Kristina is currently a board member for the Sequoia ForestKeeper, a nonprofit, grassroots organization whose mission is to protect the world’s Giant Sequoias, and the Fund for Wild Nature, whose mission is to invest in cutting-edge grassroots organizations and innovative conservation efforts to protect biodiversity and wilderness. She holds a B.S. in social science from the University of California, Berkeley. Kristina is also an accomplished actress who has performed in theater and film around the world.
Laura Ireland Moore
Laura is the Executive Director of the National Center for Animal Law, and the Senior Attorney and Clinical Professor of the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School. She established NCAL upon graduation to build upon the school's national reputation as a leader in animal law. NCAL supports students pursuing careers in animal law by fostering curriculum developments; hosting conferences, competitions, and trainings; providing financial support for animal law students; and providing resources and mentorship. The Animal Law Clinic provides students with real world experiences advocating for animals through litigation, legislative, and regulatory efforts. This is Laura's tenth year organizing the Animal Law Conference.
Shannon Keith
Shannon Keith grew up in Los Angeles, California, with a house full of animals and family roots in entertainment. Animals are considered property, and Shannon has been striving to change that while defending animal rights activists in the courtroom, saving dogs being prosecuted in Los Angeles by getting them off death row, as well as prosecuting those who abuse animals.
Shannon represents animal rights activists and organizations pro bono. Her clientele include: SHARK (Showing Animals Respect and Kindness), SHAC USA (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA), SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY, and others.
In 2004, Shannon started a non-profit, tax-exempt group called ARME (Animal Rescue, Media & Education). ARME rescues homeless animals and is focused on stopping the problem at it’s roots, by making educational documentaries that teach people what really happens to animals and about those who risk their lives and freedom to save them.
Shannon Keith then started her own production company called Uncaged Films, after she learned that she had been an FBI target, labeled as an “Animal Rights Extremist.” Uncaged Films and ARME’s first feature-length documentary is called “Behind the Mask.” This controversial film has questioned and challenged many peoples’ perspectives about our government, about people, and about animal exploitation.
Shannon has also just begun a non-profit organization called Activist Legal Fund, formed in order to provide much needed representation to animal rights activsts.
Cheryl Leahy
Cheryl Leahy is general counsel for Compassion Over Killing.
She received a J.D. from UCLA School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Chicago. COK focuses on abuse to animals raised for food, and Ms. Leahy's position is aimed at targeting large-scale abuse of farmed animals through litigation. These cases include criminal and civil causes of action challenging the treatment of animals on commercial facilities, as well as efforts to challenge misleading advertising as it relates to the way animals are treated. Her dog Boru accompanies her to the office every day.
Russ Mead
Russ serves as General Counsel for Best Friends Animal Society, the nation’s largest no kill animal sanctuary. He received his JD from St. Louis University School of Law in 1990. Prior to that, he worked as a CPA and was also CEO of a large leasing company. He has an MBA and a BS degree in accounting from Arizona State University. He lives in Kanab, Utah with his wife, Laura, and, of course, their animals.
Andrew Page
Andrew Page is the manager of the Hunting Campaign for The Humane Society of the United States. The campaign works to end the most egregious forms of hunting that exist today, including canned hunting, internet hunting, contest kills, and baiting. Page has years of advocacy experience. He has worked in social services and has been involved in the animal protection movement for many years. He grew up in the rural Midwest and hunted animals throughout his childhood. Page holds a master's degree in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco and a bachelor's degree in Justice Studies from Arizona State University.
Nicole Pallotta
Nicole Pallotta is the Student Liaison for ALDF's Animal Law Program. In this capacity, she works with the law student members who are interested in protecting the lives and advancing interests of animals through the legal system. Nicole also works with over 100 Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) chapters, which are ALDF-affiliated law student groups that work to promote animal law within their communities. Nicole helps law students form and maintain chapters, and assists them with projects like getting animal law courses added to the curriculum at their schools. Prior to joining ALDF, Nicole completed a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate courses in animals and society. In addition to her academic work, Nicole has been involved with numerous animal protection and rescue groups over the years. She lives in San Francisco with her rescued German shepherd, Alec.
Jami Pannell
Jami is a 2006 graduate of Chapman law school and is currently a clinical professor and staff attorney of the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School.
As a student at Chapman University School of Law, Jami received several awards and scholarships, including CALI awards for Legal Drafting and Trial Practice, the "World Savior Award" from the student body (most likely to change the world with a law degree) and the Marjorie W. Day California ABOTA Scholarship. Her team placed second in the 2005 National Animal Advocacy Moot Court competition during her second year, and she founded a student chapter of the Animal Legal Defense Fund during her first year. Jami was a member of both the moot court honors board and the mock trial board.
Jami joined the Animal Law Clinic in 2007. Under her direction, students in the clinic develop their litigation, negotiation, drafting, and advocacy skills. Students support animal law attorneys and animal advocacy organizations nationwide to advance protections for companion animals, wildlife, and animals used for research, entertainment, and food and food production through litigation, regulations, and legislation.
The Animal Law Clinic also provides legal services for individuals in Oregon on a sliding scale basis. Typical cases include veterinary malpractice, wrongful death or injury of companion animals, civil animal activist defense, landlord tenant disputes over pet restrictions, "dangerous" dog administrative hearings and appeals, animal custody disputes, advancing protections for farmed animals, and constitutional issues arising from wrongful animal seizures.
Peter Petersan
Peter J. Petersan is the Deputy Director of Animal Protection Litigation (APL) for The Humane Society of the United States. APL conducts precedent-setting legal campaigns on behalf of animals in state and federal courts around the country. With a staff of 10 full-time lawyers and more than 30 active cases, APL is the largest Animal Protection Litigation program in the country. Peter has been involved in animal protection issues for over a decade. He received his J.D. with honors from American University and he holds a B.A. from Wichita State University.
Bernard Rollin
Bernard Rollin is the author of 14 books, including "Natural and Conventional Meaning" (1976), "Animal Rights and Human Morality" (1981, 1993 & 2006) and "The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain and Scientific Change" (1988 &1998), "Farm Animal Welfare" (1995), "The Frankenstein Syndrome" (1995), "The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions (2004, with John Benson)" and over 400 articles.
He is one of the leading scholars in animal rights and animal consciousness and has lectured over 1000 times all over the world in 28 countries. Rollin is a founder and board member of Optibrand, an animal identification company utilizing retinal images. He was a principal architect of 1985 federal laboratory animal laws. Rollin developed the world’s first courses in veterinary medical ethics, ethical issues in animal science, and biology combined with philosophy. The winner of numerous U.S. and international awards, he is a weightlifter, horseman, and motorcyclist.
Paul Shapiro
Paul Shapiro is the senior director of the Factory Farming Campaign at the Humane Society of the United States, the nation’s largest animal welfare charity with 10 million supporters. He has spearheaded numerous successful campaigns to improve the plight of farm animals, most notably several campaigns to work with retailers to stop selling battery cage eggs. He also played a significant role in the successful 2006 Arizona ballot initiative to ban the confinement of calves in veal crates and breeding pigs in gestation crates. Mr. Shapiro is also the founder and former campaigns director for Compassion Over Killing, a farm animal welfare organization based in Washington, DC, where he helped lead campaigns such as the successful effort to end the use of the misleading “Animal Care Certified” logo on battery cage egg cartons nationwide. At Compassion Over Killing, Mr. Shapiro also worked as a farm animal cruelty investigator, primarily documenting conditions on egg and broiler factory farms, livestock auctions and slaughter plants.
Kim W. Stallwood
For 30 years, Kim W. Stallwood has been an advocate for animals working in leadership positions for some of the world�s foremost organizations in the United Kingdom and United States. This includes Compassion In World Farming(1976-1978), British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (1978-1986), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (1987-1992), and The Animals' Agenda magazine and its nonprofit publisher, the Animal Rights Network(1993-2002). He reinvented ARN as the Institute for Animals and Society, the first animal rights public policy think tank, which merged in 2005 with the Society and Animals Forum (formerly Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to form the Animals and Society Institute.
This summer, he returned to England to live as a consultant (he is ASI�s European Director) and as an independent scholar and author. This fall Fantagraphics Books publishes in its annual graphic novel, Blab 18, "An
Elephant Never Forgets," which is about Topsy, the elephant electrocuted in 1903 by Thomas Edison in New York. It is illustrated by Sue Coe and Stallwood wrote the accompany text. He became a vegetarian in 1974 after
working in a chicken slaughterhouse. He's been a vegan since 1976. He can be contact at his personal Web site www.grumpyvegan.com.
Erica Thorson
Erica Thorson is an attorney with the International Environmental Law Project (IELP) at Lewis & Clark Law School. IELP is a legal clinic specializing in the practice of international environmental law, as well as in training law students to become international environmental attorneys. Erica’s work specializes in wildlife trade issues under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). She regularly attends the meetings of the Conference of the Parties to CITES to advocate for strengthening implementation of the Convention on behalf of wildlife conservation. In conjunction with these efforts, Erica is a member of the Species Survival Network. Erica’s practice also extends to pacific salmon, whaling, and other marine issues, as well as some climate change work.
Bruce Wagman
Bruce Wagman is a partner with Morgenstein & Jubelirer in San Francisco and concentrates his practice in animal law and products liability defense, as well as employment, labor litigation, and appeals. He is an adjunct professor of animal law at Hastings College of the Law, Boalt Hall, Stanford Law School and the University of San Francisco School of Law. Mr. Wagman is the co-author of the Animal Law Textbook, and Chief Outside Counsel for the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
Paula Walker
Paula Walker is a third year evening law student at Lewis & Clark Law School, J.D. expected May 2008, certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, specialization in Animal Law. This summer Paula attended the Fourteenth Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) in The Hague, Netherlands as a student in the International Environmental Law Project (IELP), a legal clinic housed at Lewis & Clark. With IELP she worked specifically on issues related to trade in marine species such as the spiney dogfish and porbeagle sharks. Paula is an active member of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF).
Sonia Waisman
Ms. Waisman is a partner with the international law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP in Los Angeles, California, specializing in complex insurance coverage litigation. Ms. Waisman is also involved in the development of animal law. She co-authored the first animal law casebook, which is now in its third edition (Animal Law: Cases and Materials, Carolina Academic Press 2006). She is an Adjunct Professor of Animal Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, and has previously taught Animal Law at California Western School of Law in San Diego, and Vermont Law School. Ms. Waisman also does pro bono work, consults, lectures and has written several articles on the subject. She was on the Board of Directors of the Animal Legal Defense Fund from 2001 through 2006.
