Animal Law Podcast

This month’s Animal Law Podcast features attorney Taj Uppal, who was arrested and charged with felony grand theft after rescuing two sick baby goats from Vera Goat Dairy, a California factory farm supplying Meyenberg Goat Milk to retailers like Whole Foods and Walmart. Uppal walks through the investigation that preceded the rescue, his arrest by Kings County Sheriff’s deputies, and the…

This week, Mariann Sullivan sits down with Cheryl Leahy, director of the newly launched Animal Law Practice Association (ALPA) at the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, to unpack how the free program is training and connecting lawyers who want to build careers protecting animals. Cheryl explains ALPA’s two core pillars — a growing library of practical, topic-specific legal…

Animal law attorney and activist Wayne Hsiung joins host Mariann Sullivan along with attorneys Chris Carraway and Steffen Seitz of the University of Denver’s Animal Activist Legal Defense Project to break down the California Court of Appeals decision in Hsiung’s criminal case—a pivotal ruling that overturned two of three trespass convictions stemming from actions at Sunrise Farms and Reichardt Duck Farm,…

In this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, host Mariann Sullivan speaks with Amal Bouhabib, senior staff attorney at FarmSTAND, about a landmark federal lawsuit involving three young men from Guatemala who were recruited to the U.S. on J-1 cultural exchange visas and subjected to dangerous working conditions, fraudulent promises, substandard housing, and coercive threats at an industrial swine operation in…

In a landmark ruling, a federal court in the Northern District of California struck down four of six challenged Trump administration regulations that had significantly weakened the Endangered Species Act’s core enforcement mechanisms. Host Mariann Sullivan speaks with Noah Greenwald, Endangered Species Program Director at the Center for Biological Diversity, about the case — what was challenged, what the court decided,…

When Canadian animal rights lawyer and Animal Justice Executive Director Camille Labchuk discovered that a Manitoba horse exporter had shipped 97 horses to Japan in December 2022 — on a rerouted flight projected to exceed Canada’s 28-hour transport limit and without a legally required contingency plan covering the full journey — she did something almost unheard of in Canadian animal law:…

In this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan sits down with Dr. Neil Dullaghan, political scientist and author of The Compassion Mandate: Remaking the European Union’s Leadership on Farmed Animal Welfare. Together, they explore the complexities and challenges of EU farmed animal policies. This episode explores: The historical progress and current state of farmed animal welfare in the EU.…

In this compelling episode, Mariann Sullivan interviews Wayne Hsiung and attorney Steffen Seitz about Wayne’s conviction following animal rescues at factory farms in California. The case hinges on several groundbreaking legal arguments, including the judge’s refusal to allow a necessity defense for rescuing suffering animals, constitutional concerns about the treatment of veganism as a belief system, and First Amendment implications for…

In a bold legal challenge that could redefine animal protection law, PETA is taking on the Maine Lobster Festival for steaming 16,000 lobsters alive on public parkland. The case hinges on Maine’s unique animal cruelty statute that protects “every living sentient creature” – a definition that evolves with scientific understanding. PETA’s Director of Litigation, Asher Smith, explains their creative approach using…

In this intellectually stimulating episode of the Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan speaks with constitutional law expert Michael Dorf about his innovative course “Animals and the Constitution.” Dorf shares how fundamental legal principles intersect with animal protection, revealing both the limitations and opportunities within our constitutional framework for advancing animal rights. This episode explores: Constitutional standing for animals: How courts determine…

Attorneys Will Lowrey (Animal Partisan) and Jessica Blome (Greenfire Law) join Mariann to discuss their battle to use California’s century-old animal protection laws to help dairy calves confined in tiny hutches. Despite having clear evidence that a dairy farm was violating Penal Code Section 597t by denying calves adequate exercise, they encountered a frustrating maze of procedural obstacles that prevented them…

In this thought-provoking episode of the Animal Law Podcast, we dive into a First Amendment case that cuts straight to the heart of animal advocacy: can the government prevent activists from showing the public what actually happens to animals in industrial agriculture? Mariann speaks with Sara Berinhout of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and John Greil of the University…

This episode of the Animal Law Podcast features Christopher Berry, Executive Director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, discussing a groundbreaking court case that recognizes companion animals as family members in certain legal contexts. Mariann and Christopher explore how this New York decision challenges decades of precedent that treated beloved pets as mere property rather than family, potentially opening new doors for…

In this compelling episode, Mariann Sullivan speaks with Elise Bennett, Senior Attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, about the lawsuit challenging the controversial immigration detention facility in Florida’s Everglades. Bennett details how this hastily constructed center in Big Cypress National Preserve threatens endangered species, water quality, and the integrity of a crucial ecosystem that has received billions in restoration funding…

In a groundbreaking episode of The Animal Law Podcast, we explored radical new concepts that could fundamentally transform how constitutional law treats animals. Host Mariann Sullivan welcomed Cambridge University’s Raffael Fasel and Queen Mary University’s John Adenitire to discuss their book “Animals and the Constitution: Towards Sentience-Based Constitutionalism” – a work that challenges centuries of legal tradition by proposing constitutional frameworks…

In this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan welcomes back Will Lowrey, legal counsel for Animal Partisan, alongside David Rosengard, managing attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund‘s Criminal Justice Program. They dive into an obscure but potentially game-changing legal tool: laws in certain states that allow private citizens to obtain search warrants when they have evidence of animal…

Alene Anello of Legal Impact for Chickens joins us once again, this time to talk, not about chickens, but about cows. Of course, the laws affecting farmed animals are often the same regardless of species and Legal Impact for Chickens thinks it would be great to see some of California’s rather good laws protecting farmed animals actually enforced. For that reason,…

FarmSTAND attorneys Kelsey Eberly and Skye Walker join us on this episode to discuss an absolutely infuriating case, Blumm v Northwest Natural Gas Company. They explain how an increasing number of dairy farms are more in the business of selling the methane being produced by their manure piles, or, as they call them, “lagoons,” than selling milk. Now, in Oregon, natural…

Edie Bowles, the Managing Director of UK law firm Advocates for Animals, joins us on this episode to help us understand what appears to be a groundbreaking decision in animal welfare law that involves one of the most widespread and egregious practices in industrial animal agriculture, the breeding of factory-farmed chickens raised for meat in ways that cause unbelievable suffering. At…

Chris Green and Rebecca Garverman join us this week to talk about a case that managed to catch the attention not only of the public at large but of a number of lawyers and, after a great deal of hard work, resulted in a historic victory. You may have heard about the plight of the Tule elk at Point Reyes National…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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’…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Ryan Shannon joins us to talk about Center for Biological Diversity v Haaland. The Center actually brings a lot of cases involving the Endangered Species Act, but this one is different. As you may know, if you pay attention to ESA litigation, a lot of it has to do with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to get around to making…

On this episode,  I will be talking once again with Will Lowrey, who is heading up the relatively new legal advocacy organization, Animal Partisan. We will be talking about a Freedom of Information Act request, which has just recently become a lawsuit, regarding the FBI and its relationship to animal agribusiness as well as its attitudes toward animal rights activists. There…

Larissa Liebmann, a Senior Staff Attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, joins me to discuss ALDF v Becerra, in which the plaintiffs are suing the Food and Drug Administration regarding its authorization of the use of a drug known as Experior that is being administered to cattle in spite of potential harms to the animals, the environment, and to people…

Civil rights attorney Matthew Strugar joins me this week to talk about a case in Washington, DC, involving the rights of animal activists protesting the sale of foie gras at two prominent restaurants in that city. Our conversation will involve the controversial use of anti-stalking laws to limit protests, as well as the successful use of DC’s anti-SLAPP law to defend…

On this episode,  we have something a bit different. I will be talking with Kristina Bergsten, the owner and founder of The Animal Law Firm, a Colorado law firm with a multi-state practice. For those of you who are graduating from Law School or just looking to change your career and wondering whether you can make a living doing animal law,…

On this episode of the podcast, I will be talking, once again, with Katherine Meyer, who is the Director of Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Clinic, about a recent decision in a case handled by the clinic entitled New England Anti Vivisection Society (now known as Rise for Animals v  Elizabeth Goldentyre). This case involves the provision of the…

If you are pleased that California’s Prop 12 (which, in a small but important way, limits the amount of suffering that can be imposed on mother pigs) survived in the Supreme Court, but you are still unclear as to exactly why and exactly who voted for what, you have come to the right place. Today I will be talking, once again,…

On this episode, I will be talking, once again, to Vanessa Shakib of the California law firm, Advancing Law for Animals. Vanessa is representing E.L., who, though you don’t know her by name, you have definitely heard about. She is the young girl whose beloved goat, Cedar, who started out as a 4H project, was brutally killed against E.L.’s wishes in…

On this episode, I will be talking, once again, with Asher Smith, Director of Litigation at the PETA Foundation, about a recent victory in the 9th Circuit in Sullivan v The University of Washington. This case involves a crucially important aspect of the Animal Welfare Act – the IACUC, or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. The Act provides, rather unfortunately,…

On today’s episode, I will be talking to Margie Robinson, an attorney with the Humane Society of the United States. Margie will be telling us about Humane Society of the United States v National Institutes of Health, the latest lawsuit in the years-long effort to relocate to sanctuary ALL the chimpanzees formerly held for research by the National Institutes of Health…

On this episode, I will be talking to Taimie Bryant, a law professor at UCLA School of Law. She will explain some of the ins and outs of a law review article she recently published in the Marquette Law Review entitled “Novel Food Ingredients: Food Safety Law, Animal Testing, and Consumer Perspectives.” This article involves the question of what the FDA…

Today I will be talking to Raffael Fasel and Sean Butler, who are the founders of the Cambridge Center for Animal Rights Law at Cambridge University in the UK. They are doing something quite special — a series of workshops in various parts of the world seeking to help law professors and lawyers, and perhaps some others, develop courses at their…

On this episode, I will be talking to Alene Anello, whose law firm, Legal Impact for Chickens, is pursuing a shareholder derivative case against Costco regarding the treatment of the poor little birds whose bodies end up being their extremely popular, and very cheap, rotisserie chickens. Essentially, in Smith v Vachris, currently pending in Superior Court in King County, Washington, Legal…

On this episode I will be discussing a case that a lot of you have no doubt heard of, and that is National Pork Producers Council v Ross, which was recently argued in the Supreme Court. This case brings into question the constitutionality of Proposition 12, something else which many of you may be familiar with, by which California set certain…

On this episode, I will be discussing State of Utah v Hsiung, the case that has everyone in the movement talking. Wayne Hsiung and Jon Frohnmeyer will be here to discuss the prosecution of Wayne, along with his co-defendant Paul Picklesimer, for burglary and theft for entering a huge Smithfield factory farm in Utah and, while there, rescuing two sick piglets.…

On this episode I will be discussing  Krasno v Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin, a crazy case involving comments made on the Facebook and Instagram accounts of the University involving the dreadful research conducted on primates at the University and, in particular, at the infamous Harlow Center for Biological Psychology. Joining me will be both the plaintiff in…

It’s become pretty clear that the more that meat-eating consumers find out about how the animals they eat were treated, the more temptation there is for the industry to, shall we say, fudge the truth. Thus, today I will be talking to Dije Ndreu and Brooke Dekolf of Richman Law and Policy about two cases they are currently litigating regarding the…

On this episode I will be speaking with Jessica Rubin, who is the Associate Dean of Experiential Learning and the Director of the Animal Law Clinic at the University of Connecticut School of Law. She will be discussing a Connecticut law, called Desmond’s Law, which allows law students, and lawyers, to be appointed to assist the court in certain animal cruelty cases…

On this episode I will be talking to Asher Smith, who is the Director of Litigation at the PETA Foundation, about Usler v Vital Farms, which is a class action against an egg facility which makes some very elaborate claims about how well they are treating their hens (“our girls!”) and charges their customers a hefty premium for doing so. So,…

On this episode I will be talking, once again, to Kelsey Eberly, who is now with Harvard Law School’s Animals, Law and Policy Program, as well as with Dena Jones of the Animal Welfare Institute about the deeply troubling topic of chicken slaughter. Specifically, we will be discussing Animal Welfare Institute v Vilsack, a case involving the rather confusing landscape of…

On this week’s podcast I will be talking to Will Lowrey of Animal Outlook about a case that really has everyone in the animal law community talking. Several years ago Animal Outlook conducted an undercover investigation of Martin Farms, in Pennsylvania, a dairy farm that proved to be the locus of much hideous cruelty to animals. Some of that cruelty was…

Welcome to the Animal Law Podcast. This is Mariann Sullivan and this week’s guest is Charlotte Blattner, a Swiss lawyer and professor of law, who will be talking about primates in Switzerland and a recent ballot initiative held in Basel initiated by the Swiss organization Sentience regarding their rights. Charlotte and I will discuss this very recent effort, the pluses and…

Welcome to the Animal Law Podcast. This is Mariann Sullivan, and this week we will be doing something a little bit different. Sherry Colb is a professor at Cornell Law School where, among many other things, she teaches an animal centric course that, to my knowledge, is quite different from most of the courses relating to animals taught at law schools.…

On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak with Tyler Lobdell about Food and Water Watch v Environmental Protection Agency, in which the 9th Circuit recently held that the EPA, in setting forth permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act for the way Idaho factory farms dispose of the staggering amount of manure that they are producing, was not,…

On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak, once again, with Steven Wise, founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP). He joins me to talk about a truly extraordinary, potentially groundbreaking, case now pending in the highest court in New York State. As in the other cases Steve has joined us to discuss in the past, the…

On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak with David Ebert, co-founder of The Animal Defense Partnerhip, about the work of this “pro bono counsel for animal protection charities.” As David points out, the purpose of ADP is not to litigate animal rights issues, but to provide animal protection nonprofits with the legal services that any type of organization…

On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak with David Michelson, Oregon-based animal rights activist and chief petitioner of the Yes On IP13 campaign, which is the effort to pass a ballot initiative that would dramatically change the legal landscape for animals in that state. Basically, what they are trying to do is to make Oregon’s anti-cruelty law do…