On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak with Margaret Kwoka a professor at the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver, about the Animal Welfare Act and the Freedom of Information Act,  and how these pertain to the ongoing case of Animal Legal Defense Fund vs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture. This case involves the USDA’s…

Animal Law Podcast #52: The (Ongoing) Case of the USDA Records Blackout

Join Animal Law professor and longtime activist Mariann Sullivan as she unpacks the latest updates, cases, and news from the burgeoning world of animal law. Mariann will be joined by the leaders in the field, and will offer her own insightful (and sometimes biting) commentary. An Our Hen House podcast.

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Jake Kamins joins us to talk about his groundbreaking work as an Animal Cruelty Resource Prosecutor in the Oregon Department of Justice. This position, which was created very recently, not only allows him to prosecute animal cruelty cases but, perhaps even more importantly, also allows him to act as a kind of roving resource, as his title indicates, to District Attorneys’ offices around the state when they have an animal cruelty case that presents some of the many unusual problems that can arise in prosecuting animal cruelty that don’t generally arise in most of the other cases handled by these offices. This interview presents a lot of insights into those problems as well as what animal cruelty laws cover, what they don’t cover, and how important it is to have people who not only care but who are specially trained to deal with these issues.

Jake Kamins is a Senior Assistant Attorney General and Animal Cruelty Resource Prosecutor at the Oregon Department of Justice. Jake has prosecuted hundreds of cases of animal cruelty, and has trained law enforcement, animal services, and animal rescue agencies throughout Oregon and the United States. Jake also teaches the “Crimes Against Animals” class at Lewis & Clark Law School. In 2012, Jake was named one of the nation’s Top Ten Animal Defenders by the Animal Legal Defense Fund. In 2022, Jake received the National Animal Control Association’s Bill Lehman Memorial Award. 

 View the full episode with resources here: https://ourhenhouse.org/ALP107/  The Animal Law Podcast is released by the nonprofit organization Our Hen House. Share your thoughts with us on social media! Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter (@ourhenhouse).

Animal Law Podcast #107: Prosecuting Cruelty

Sarah Gold of Legal Impact for Chickens joins us to discuss litigation against giant poultry factory Case Farms. As you may know, I am a big fan of efforts to get anti-cruelty laws to do what they were meant to do, that is, protecting animals from cruelty. What a concept! Those efforts can be extraordinarily difficult to mount, and so I was particularly pleased to see that Legal Impact for Chickens is attempting to use North Carolina’s anti-cruelty law to try to help the poor birds who end up in the hands of Case Farms’ huge hatcheries. North Carolina has an unusual law, unusual in good ways and not-so-good ways, and we will be unpacking that law, what its potential might be for North Carolina chickens, what has happened so far in this case, and what comes next. 

Sarah is a litigator with Legal Impact for Chickens. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Prior to law school, Sarah worked as a shelter intern at Farm Sanctuary. During law school, she served as president of the Animal Law Society, and interned at Mercy for Animals. After graduating, Sarah worked as a litigation associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. She also serves as secretary on the board of Sunset Farms Sanctuary, a farmed animal sanctuary in Arkansas. 

 View the full episode with resources here: https://ourhenhouse.org/ALP106/  The Animal Law Podcast is released by the nonprofit organization Our Hen House. Share your thoughts with us on social media! Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter (@ourhenhouse).

Animal Law Podcast #106: A Case Farms Case of Cruelty

Vanessa Shakib joins me once again, and this time, we will be discussing litigation brought by her client, White Coat Waste Project, about a really extraordinary situation at the National Institutes of Health. As you probably know, the NIH funds massive, massive amounts of research on animals. What you may not know is that much of that research does not take place in the United States but in other countries around the world. And what I certainly did not know until this interview is that the requirements regarding animal care that are imposed on foreign research are actually LESS than those imposed on researchers in the US. Crazy, right?

Vanessa Shakib co-founded and co-directs Advancing Law for Animals, a non-profit law firm, where she develops impact litigation to further the interests of animals exploited in research and industrial food production.  Her work has been featured by CNN, Fox News, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, the Guardian, Science Magazine, and more. Vanessa is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School, and was awarded 2022-2023 SBA Adjunct Professor of the Year. She also continues to consult on a variety of legal matters through her private practice, Shakib Law, PC.

 View the full episode with resources here: https://ourhenhouse.org/ALP105/  The Animal Law Podcast is released by the nonprofit organization Our Hen House. Share your thoughts with us on social media! Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter (@ourhenhouse).

Animal Law Podcast #105: Breaking the Rules?: Taxpayer-Funded Animal Research Outside the US

Christine Ball-Blakely of the Animal Legal Defense Fund joins us to discuss the work of a coalition of organizations that has filed petitions for rulemaking regarding the unbelievable subsidization, with your tax money, of “biogas,” aka factory farm gas, which, as far as I am concerned, appears to be an out and out scam to prop up factory farming, hide its worst environmental harms and convince people that it is part of a sustainable future, when it is, in fact, one of the worst causes of climate change. It’s all outrageous but also flying way too far under the radar, as so many stories about the harms of factory farming tend to do, as they are science-y, deliberately hidden away and obfuscated, and, perhaps most important, definitely not what people want to hear. Fortunately, WE want to hear it, and Christine makes it all very comprehensible.

As a senior staff attorney at the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Christine works to end the exploitation and systemic abuse of farmed animals. She employs environmental laws to hold the factory farming industry—and the government agencies responsible for regulating it—accountable. She believes that, together, we can build a just legal system that prioritizes the protection of animals, the environment, and marginalized communities over private profit.

 View the full episode with resources here: https://ourhenhouse.org/ALP104/  The Animal Law Podcast is released by the nonprofit organization Our Hen House. Share your thoughts with us on social media! Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (@ourhenhouse).

Animal Law Podcast #104: The Biogas Nightmare

Matthew Strugar joins us, once again, to talk about the many surprising legal issues that arise vis-a-vis bus ads. Specifically, we’ll be discussing White Coat Waste Project v Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, a relatively recent case that involves a rather odd bus ad policy that prohibits “advertising intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions.” In addition, however, we will be talking about several other cases and about how the law has developed regarding advertising in publicly owned spaces, how such advertising intersects with the First Amendment, what animal advocates can expect when they seek to get ads up on buses and in other publicly owned spaces and when they should fight back if they are prevented from getting their message out.

Matthew has been vegan since 1996 and a protest lawyer since 2004. He worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights and the PETA Foundation before starting his own firm in 2016.

 View the full episode with resources here: https://ourhenhouse.org/ALP103/  The Animal Law Podcast is released by the nonprofit organization, Our Hen House. Share your thoughts with us on social media! Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (@ourhenhouse).

Animal Law Podcast #52: The (Ongoing) Case of the USDA Records Blackout

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