Paul Sherman, senior attorney with the public interest law firm The Institute for Justice, joins us this week to discuss the legal battle over cultivated meat in Florida. Paul is leading the landmark lawsuit brought by UPSIDE Foods, challenging Florida’s controversial statute that criminalizes (criminalizes!) the production and sale of USDA-approved cultivated meat products in the state.

This pivotal case examines constitutional challenges to state food regulation through both the dormant commerce clause and federal preemption arguments. Key questions include: Does cultivated chicken meet the federal definition of poultry? How does the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act affect producers’ rights? And can states ban products that federal regulators have deemed safe?

Key Discussion Points:

Paul Sherman is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he champions individual rights and constitutional protections through groundbreaking litigation. Specializing in First Amendment cases and economic liberty, Sherman leads significant legal challenges including UPSIDE Foods’ fight against Florida’s cultivated meat ban and cases defending plant-based meat alternatives’ advertising rights. His work at the nonprofit public-interest law firm focuses on challenging restrictive occupational-licensing laws that burden free speech and defending individual liberties in both federal and state courts. Sherman holds a law degree from George Washington University Law School and degrees in political campaigning and political science from the University of Florida.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Between now and December 31, all donations will be TRIPLED up to $20,000! Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

Emily Miller of Food and Water Watch joins us to talk about Food and Water Watch v EPA, which involves the Clean Water Act and why, when it comes to one particular industry (guess which one!), it is so ineffective in guarding our water from being polluted with outright filth. Whether it comes to the failure to require factory farms to get permits or failure to ensure the factory farm permits that do exist are actually protective of water quality, the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, which is charged with enforcing it, are failing to live up to their names, and too often the courts are failing as well.

Emily Miller is a Staff Attorney at the national advocacy organization Food & Water Watch. Emily primarily focuses on legal strategies to address factory farm air and water pollution harming frontline communities, the environment, and the climate. She is based in Colorado.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Between now and December 31, all donations will be TRIPLED up to $20,000! Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

Wayne Hsiung and Justin Marceau are joining us on this episode to talk about the criminal prosecution of Tracy Murphy, founder and director of Asha’s Farm Sanctuary in Newfane, New York, for supposedly stealing two cows who wandered onto her property seeking, you guessed it, sanctuary. You have probably heard of this case, but maybe, like me, you don’t know much about the legal issues or even what really happened. Happily, after two years of hideous stress and significant harassment, Tracy was recently cleared when the charges against her were dismissed. While that is great news, it also means that the case did not go to trial, and we never really heard the full story of what happened or why the law was clearly on her side. Fortunately, Justin and Wayne are here to get into the details of the facts and the relevant law and to talk about the meaning of this case in the fight against animal abuse.

Justin Marceau is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Animal Law Program at the University of Denver.  Justin authored or co-authored three books with Cambridge University Press.  Marceau also co-founded and helps direct a first-of-its-kind law school clinic, the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, which provides activists with representation in criminal and civil litigation.  Justin serves on the board of a number of entities, including the non-human rights project and the Luvin Arms farm sanctuary, as well as the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights.  He is also an active member of several working groups for the Brooks Institute for animal rights law and policy. 

Wayne Hsiung is an animal cruelty investigator, former faculty member at Northwestern School of Law, and co-founder and Executive Director of The Simple Heart Initiative. He has led teams that have investigated and rescued animals from factory farms and slaughterhouses across the nation – challenging unconstitutional “ag-gag” laws in the process – and has organized successful campaigns to ban fur in San Francisco and California. He served as lead counsel (and, sometimes, defendant) in four “right to rescue” trials in which activists were prosecuted after being charged for giving aid to sick and dying animals in factory farms, garnering media attention from The New York Times. He is also a co-founder and former lead organizer of the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere. He is the proud parent of Oliver, who was rescued from the dog meat trade.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Between now and December 31, all donations will be TRIPLED up to $20,000! Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

On this episode, I will be speaking about a topic that is crucial to the fight against factory farms, i.e., zoning. My guest is Holly Bainbridge, an attorney with FarmSTAND, a legal advocacy organization dedicated solely to taking on industrial animal agriculture.  She will be telling us about Daley Farm v. County of Winona, which involves an already huge Minnesota dairy that is trying, in spite of zoning laws that would ostensibly prohibit it from doing so, to turn itself into a super mega-dairy. It turns out that some of the people in the small community where it’s located are really not ok with this for a whole host of reasons, believe that their zoning laws exist for very good reasons, and are fighting back.

Holly Bainbridge is a Staff Attorney with FarmSTAND, where she litigates cases to increase transparency in the food system and challenge industrial agricultural practices that harm people, animals, and the environment. Prior to joining FarmSTAND, Holly was a litigator at Animal Legal Defense Fund, where she focused on improving government oversight of industrial animal agriculture.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated, and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

Two lawyers who are at the forefront of some of the new directions in which animal law is developing join us once again on this episode. Will Lowrey of Animal Partisan and Chris Carraway of the University of Denver’s Animal Activist Legal Defense Project will join me to discuss another innovative and exciting chapter in the effort to use cruelty laws to actually protect farmed animals from cruelty. Imagine that! This time, we are in Colorado, and the subject is the botched slaughter of a lamb — how’s that for horrific? — and we will be discussing their efforts to hold the slaughterhouse accountable under a provision of Colorado law that allows citizens to do something when prosecutors fail to do their job.

Will Lowrey is the Legal Counsel for Animal Partisan, a legal advocacy organization focused on challenging unlawful conduct at farms, slaughterhouses, and laboratories. Will previously spent several years as Legal Counsel for Animal Outlook, a national nonprofit farmed animal protection organization, where he divided his time between civil litigation and undercover investigations. Will has engaged in numerous lawsuits, as well as criminal and administrative enforcement actions against the government, industrial agriculture, and research laboratories, including cases involving federal slaughter laws, public records, false advertising, public nuisance, animal cruelty, and others. Will has taught Animal Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, Vermont Law and Graduate School, and the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Chris Carraway is an attorney and an activist. Before joining the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, he was a lead attorney in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender. There, Chris defended cases ranging from low-level misdemeanors to first-degree murder, participated in over 60 jury trials, and litigated cases in the Colorado Court of Appeals and Colorado Supreme Court. Chris graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was president of the student chapters for the National Lawyers Guild and the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. Before that, Chris began his involvement in animal rights activism in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina­—doing outreach, defendant and prisoner support, and organizing local campaigns against the selling of foie gras and fur. Witnessing the criminalization of animal rights activism in the 00’s compelled him to go to law school.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated, and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

Laura Fox of the Farmed Animal Advocacy Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School and Stijn van Osch of the Humane Society of the United States join us to talk about cows, chickens, pigs, securities law, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Amazon rainforest and some very, very high stakes for animals and for the planet. We’ll be chatting with them about a complaint that was recently filed with the SEC about the efforts of agribusiness mega-giant JBS to go public in the US and how it is attempting to comply with the very inconvenient requirements of the SEC that it has to tell the truth to investors. There is a lot to unpack here, and even for those of us with little expertise in securities law, this conversation is not only understandable but incredibly compelling.

Laura Fox is a Visiting Professor and the inaugural director of the Farmed Animal Advocacy Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School. Before joining the law school, Prof. Fox was a Senior Staff Attorney at the Humane Society of the United States, focusing on farmed animal protection in HSUS’s Animal Protection Law department.

Stijn van Osch is a Michigan attorney who currently works at the Humane Society of the United States as part of its Animal Protection Law team. At HSUS, he focuses on farm animal welfare issues, such as sow housing, cage-free eggs, and organic farm welfare standards. Prior to joining HSUS in 2022, he was Counsel in Latham & Watkins’ DC office, where he specialized in environmental and chemical regulatory law.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated, and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

Christopher Carraway and Steffen Seitz of the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project join us on this episode to talk about the case that didn’t happen. You may have heard about a criminal trial that was supposed to take place back in March in Wisconsin, where three activists affiliated with Direct Action Everywhere, Wayne Hsiung, Paul Picklesimer, and Eva Hamer, were charged with felonies resulting from the rescue of several beagles from Ridglan Farms, a notorious facility that breeds dogs for use in research. Suddenly, right before trial, the charges were dropped, and none of us ever heard the full story. So, now, Chris and Steffen are here to tell us not only about what really happened, but how they and their clients are working to turn the tables and, using a particularly interesting Wisconsin statute, bring criminal charges against Ridglan itself for animal abuse.

Chris Carraway is an attorney with the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project. Before joining the AALDP, he was a lead attorney in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender. There, Chris defended cases ranging from low-level misdemeanors to first-degree murder, participated in over 60 jury trials, and litigated cases in the Colorado Court of Appeals and Colorado Supreme Court. Chris graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was president of the student chapters for the National Lawyers Guild and the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. Before that, Chris began his involvement in animal rights activism in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina­—doing outreach, defendant and prisoner support, and organizing local campaigns against the selling of foie gras and fur. Witnessing the criminalization of animal rights activism in the 00’s compelled him to go to law school. Chris brings his experience as a defense attorney and his passion for animal rights to the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project.

Steffen Seitz is a litigation fellow for the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, where he represents animal advocates and whistleblowers in a variety of proceedings and conducts academic research. Steffen graduated from Yale Law School in May 2023. As a law student, Steffen was a member of the Yale Animal Law Society and a Law Ethics and Animal Program Student Fellow. He also worked as a legal extern on animal activist cases, particularly those involving the right to rescue. Steffen is interested in criminal law, animal law, social movements, and their intersections.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated, and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

Deborah Dubow Press, an attorney with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, joins us to talk about Williamson v USDA. This case involves both the Los Angeles school system and the USDA’s school lunch program, which influences what kids are eating in virtually every school in the country. We will be looking at some of its insane rules regarding dairy, why our nation’s kids, including lactose intolerant ones, are basically a dumping ground for dairy, and why one student in Los Angeles wasn’t allowed to talk about any of this without also promoting dairy at the same time. It’s totally nuts!!

Deborah Dubow Press, Esq., is associate general counsel for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nationwide organization of physicians and laypersons that promotes preventive medicine, especially good nutrition, and addresses controversies in modern medicine, including ethical issues in research. As associate general counsel, Ms. Press crafts policy, legislation, and litigation to advance the Physicians Committee’s mission. She also assesses legal, business, and reputational risks and manages compliance and corporate governance for the organization.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated, and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

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.

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The Animal Law Podcast is proud to partner with The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc., a US-based national independent think tank pursuing a paradigm shift in human responsibility towards, and value of, non-human animals by advancing animal law, animal policy, and related interdisciplinary studies.

The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc. is dedicated to producing and disseminating outstanding, independent, academic, and public policy research and programming; and pursuing projects and initiatives focused on advancing law and policy pertaining to animals.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated, and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

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.

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The Animal Law Podcast is proud to partner with The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc., a US-based national independent think tank pursuing a paradigm shift in human responsibility towards, and value of, non-human animals by advancing animal law, animal policy, and related interdisciplinary studies.

The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc. is dedicated to producing and disseminating outstanding, independent, academic, and public policy research and programming; and pursuing projects and initiatives focused on advancing law and policy pertaining to animals.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated, and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!