Cheryl Leahy is the former executive director of Animal Outlook. From 2006-2019, Cheryl helmed the Legal Advocacy program at Animal Outlook as its general counsel, targeting large-scale abuse of farmed animals through undercover investigations, proactive litigation, policy, and other innovative legal campaigns.  From 2019-2020 she served as Animal Outlook’s executive vice president, and in 2020 became executive director. In this role, she worked on the strategic direction of the organization as a whole, especially focusing on the use of undercover investigations as a mechanism for high-impact advocacy and culture change, and on targeting systemic abuse of farmed animals through proactive litigation. Her work, which has helped shape the development of animal law in the U.S., included challenging cruel, yet standard, practices forced upon farmed animals as well as the misleading marketing and unfair business practices by corporations that produce meat, milk and eggs often found in grocery stores. She built and oversaw Animal Outlook’s campaigns to reform the practices and offerings of major food corporations to reduce animal suffering and bring more vegan options into the food supply, and the growth of the vegan movement in mainstream culture.

Her campaigns have included the initial research and case development of what became a class action lawsuit against the dairy industry for price fixing, settled for the consumer class for $52 million; whistleblower litigation, federal intervention, and a settlement resulting from Animal Outlook’s investigation of the largest lamb slaughterhouse in the U.S.; and an investigation of Tyson Foods that resulted in hard-hitting evidence driving the first-ever charges and convictions for broiler breeder chicken cruelty.

She developed and taught one of the nation’s first courses on animals in agriculture and the law at UCLA Law and served as the project coordinator for the university’s launch of its Animal Law and Policy Small Grants program. She also worked on the Initiative on Animals in Our Food System at the Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy.

Cheryl and her work have been featured in major media outlets including NPR, The Washington Post and many more. She is a regular speaker at law schools and conferences.

Cheryl earned her J.D. from UCLA School of Law and her B.A. from the University of Chicago in Environmental Studies. She is a member of the bar in the District of Columbia, Maryland and California, and is based in Los Angeles.

Lisa is a public interest attorney who works to advocate for vulnerable and underrepresented people and animals. She has worked at several nonprofit organizations, including Animal Outlook, where she previously served on the Executive Team.

Lisa has extensive experience conducting legal and fact-based research aimed at understanding complex systems to find opportunities to use existing legal tools in creative ways to advance welfare for farmed animals, and has been vegan since 2005. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia and her law degree from the American University Washington College of Law. She is licensed to practice law in California and Hawaii, and lives in Los Angeles with her family and two rescue dogs.

Amanda Hitt has been a champion and visionary for protecting and empowering food system whistleblowers for over a decade. Hitt’s clients have included USDA food safety inspectors in ultra-high-speed slaughterhouses, contract poultry farmers faced with exploitative contracts and company retaliation, and animal researchers privy to taxpayer-funded waste and cruelty. In addition to litigating whistleblowers’ cases, Hitt works to draw public attention to these whistleblowers’ stories and to turn their revelations into food system and legal reforms using strategic policy campaigns. Hitt’s clients come from varied economic sectors and backgrounds – from factory workers to CEO’s. Through assisting her clients, Hitt has learned first-hand the importance of bringing diverse voices together to create meaningful change. Hitt is a former 2024 Visiting Fellow with the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, where she began her book detailing her experiences challenging the status quo and reimagining the food system. In addition to serving on the Animal Outlook board, she is currently consulting as she finishes her book project.