Rover Now Has Legal Muscle as Animal Law Field Emerges
Just eight years ago, only nine ABA-accredited law schools offered courses in the fledgling field of animal.
Now? More than 90 of the 196 accredited schools are on the list.
No longer are animals simply considered property, especially as they are being named as beneficiaries, become subjects of lawsuits and identified as victims of abuse, the Winston-Salem Journal reports.
“As animals rise in the law, so does the profile of animal lawyers, or lawyers who practice animal law,” the paper notes.
“You’re seeing this real snowball effect,” Pamela Alexander, the director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s animal-law section, is quoted saying.
That’s snowball as in trend, not Snowball the cat.
On the legal education side, the trend got a boost from former The Price Is Right host Bob Barker, an animal philanthropist who donated $1 million each to law schools including Duke University, Harvard University and Stanford University to bolster animal law course offerings.
The North Carolina paper cites several high-profile animal law cases, including the estate of Randall B. Terry Jr., a publisher of the High Point Enterprise, who after his death in 2004 left $1 million to ensure that his six golden retrievers would be cared for. And last year, New York’s Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her Maltese.
In addition to inheritance issues, animal lawyers develop expertise in animal-related ordinances, cruelty issues, abandoned pets and family law, including who gets Fido in a custody fight.
Updated at 4:20 p.m. to indicate link from the Winston-Salem Journal.
