About the Clinic

L-R Students Kelley McGill ’20 and Brett Richey ’21, Clinic Director Katherine Meyer

The Animal Law & Policy Clinic was launched in 2019 to provide students with direct, hands-on training in legal advocacy on behalf of animals. It is run by Clinic Director and Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor, Katherine Meyer.

Through the Clinic, students are introduced to the broad range of substantive areas of law that animal law advocates face in their work, including the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Animal Welfare Act, the Humane Slaughter Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Wild Horse and Burros Act, and state animal cruelty codes. Students learn how to pursue animal advocacy under several law and policy vehicles, including litigation, legislative initiatives, administrative rule-making petitions, open-government laws, and organizing strategies.

Clinical Fellow Kate Barnekow also prepares the Brooks Animal Law Digest, a weekly summary of the latest developments in animal law and policy, including federal and state case law, new and pending federal and state legislative initiatives, federal regulatory actions, published scholarship, and related international news. These weekly digests are then shared for use by other clinics and programs as well as practitioners in the field via the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law & Policy.

Clinic students receive course credit for working on projects that address issues across the spectrum of animals impacted under the law. These include:

• Suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over its failure to require humane handling of poultry at slaughter.
• Suing the USDA over its failure to protect primates used in biomedical research.
• Filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging Indiana’s Right to Farm Act which prevents compensation for damage caused by industrial factory farms.
• Challenging the National Park Service over fenced-in elk dying of thirst.
• Filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court over the public’s right of access to scientific analyses concerning the adverse impacts of federal actions on endangered and threatened species.
• Filing a petition with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to include cephalopods (octopus, squid and cuttlefish) among the animals entitled to humane treatment in federally funded research.
• Sending the USDA a 20-page letter urging the agency to adopt a labeling approach for cell-based meat and poultry products that does not overly restrict speech and that respects the First Amendment.
• Filing an amicus brief in the 9^th Circuit in support of listing the Pacific Walrus as a “threatened species” under the Endangered Species Act.
• Filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a challenge to the Trump Administration’s waiver of all environmental and other laws in connection with the construction of a massive Border Wall along the Mexico-United States Border.
• Submitting public comment to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over labeling of plant-based and cultivated alternatives to animal-based food products.
• Preparing detailed analyses of evidence of chronic violations of the Animal Welfare Act to be used in lobbying efforts for passage of the Animal Welfare Enforcement Improvement Act, H.R. 4211.

Explore media mentions of the Animal Law & Policy Clinic’s work.

Students interested in applying for the 2021 Fall Term should email Clinic Director Katherine Meyer at [email protected] by June 25, 2021.