Animal Outlook is a national nonprofit 501(c)(3) animal advocacy organization based in Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA.
Our mission: We’re strategically challenging animal agribusiness through undercover investigations, legal advocacy, corporate and food system reform, and disseminating information about the many harms of animal agriculture, empowering everyone to choose vegan.
Each year, our groundbreaking investigations reveal truth to consumers and spark change, our innovative legal advocacy brings justice for animals, and we inspire thousands to make compassionate choices. Standing united, we are changing the world for animals.
Exposing Truth
Undercover Investigations – Our brave investigators are shining a bright light on the hidden horrors forced upon billions of farmed animals. Approximately 20 percent of your donation goes directly toward supporting our ongoing investigative initiatives.
Delivering Justice
Legal Advocacy – Our proactive legal team is strategically challenging the status quo of animal agribusiness, from animal cruelty to misleading marketing and unfair business practices. Approximately 20 percent of your donation goes directly to Animal Outlook’s legal advocacy.
Revolutionizing Food Systems
Inspiring Change
Outreach & Education – Every day, our staff, interns and volunteers are engaging in creative and effective outreach opportunities to empower others to choose compassion by leaving animals off their plates. Approximately 30 percent of your donation goes directly to outreach and education.
Our Leadership Team
Ben Williamson
Executive Director
Lisa Winebarger
Board Chair
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.
Cheryl Leahy
Board of Directors
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.
Amanda Hitt
Board of Directors
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.
Our Staff
Elena Carter
Communications and Development Associate
Elena Carter is the Communications and Development Associate at Animal Outlook, where she channels her passion for animal protection into meaningful change. With a degree in Business and Economics from the Russian American University in Moscow, Elena brings a strong analytical background to her work, having previously worked as a financial analyst in Moscow. Now based in Baltimore, she shares her home with a rescued dog, a rescued cat, and a very understanding human, all of whom inspire her commitment to creating a kinder world for animals.
Scott David
Director of Investigations
Scott David is the Director of Investigations, providing support to Animal Outlook’s current investigators as they work undercover to expose animal cruelty. He also speaks at events nationwide about his firsthand experiences as a former investigator.
Scott was an undercover investigator for Animal Outlook (formerly Compassion Over Killing) for two years. His investigative work has offered the first hidden-camera look inside a US lamb slaughterhouse, and at a Hormel supplier slaughter plant, exposing the horrors of a cruel USDA high-speed slaughter pilot program that could be expanded to facilities nationwide. Scott’s investigative video from inside a Mountaire Farms chicken slaughterhouse in North Carolina, exposing shocking animal abuse, was filmed as a dangerous ag-gag law made its way through the state legislature — revealing the dangers of this type of legislation aimed at preventing investigations and whistleblowing. His footage has shed light on the plight of animals in slaughterhouses across the country, resulting in media headlines from the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, CNN, and more in the US and internationally.
Belinda Davis
Senior Director of communications
Belinda serves as Senior Director of Communications, where she oversees all aspects of communications strategy, including social media management, video production, website operations, press relations, graphic design, and newsletter development. With a unique blend of scientific expertise and animal welfare experience, she brings almost two decades of dedicated service to animal protection causes.
Originally from Australia, Belinda holds a PhD in molecular and microbiology and previously worked in both research and industry. Her passion for animal protection led her to transition from science to animal advocacy, beginning with her work at a dog and cat charity in Thailand. She later joined We Animals, further expanding her experience in animal protection.
Having lived in four countries and traveled to more than 20, Belinda is passionate about travel and brings a global perspective to her work. She currently calls Oregon home, where she shares her space with two cats and a dog, along with a rotating cast of foster animals. Her commitment to animal protection extends beyond her professional role through her volunteer work at Wildwood Farm Sanctuary and Preserve in Newberg, Oregon, and her service at the county shelter, where she runs kitten vaccine clinics and provides foster care for animals in need - including, on one memorable occasion, a lamb.
Angela de Freitas
Director of Farm transitions
Angela Caudle de Freitas is a native of Arkansas and has been involved in sustainable and organic agriculture since 1996. Angela began working with Florida Organic Growers (FOG) in 1999 and was involved with FOG’s community garden and youth entrepreneur programs and also worked in the organic certification program. During Angela’s tenure as the Certification Program Director, FOG successfully secured NOP, ISO 65, and CAAQ accreditations which lead to the creation of Quality Certification Services (QCS). Angela left QCS to be the Executive Director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture (IFOAM) in 2005. In this role, Angela’s focus was on non-profit management, governance, organic agriculture advocacy, project development and fundraising. Upon leaving IFOAM, Angela began consulting for several international organizations including involvement in projects for ISEAL and the Organic World Foundation. Angela currently serves as the Director of Farm Transitions at Animal Outlook (AO) where her focus is on supporting farmers to change their agricultural systems from animal-based to plant-based production, both through implementing the AO Blueprint for Farm Transitions (FT), as well as, implementing a global training program to support FT work in other organizations.
Warren Egersheim
Director of development
As Director of Development, Warren designs and implements the fundraising strategy for the organization, connects with donors regarding the work being done to save animals, and assists those who support this critical cause. Holding a Masters Degree in Nonprofit Management from Suffolk University, Warren has almost a decade of experience fundraising for animals. He currently lives in Portland, OR with his two dogs, Roscoe and Bo.
Jareb Gleckel
Staff Attorney
Jareb Gleckel is an attorney with a background in commercial litigation. At Animal Outlook, he designs novel cases to help farmed animals, and works with law enforcement to prosecute corporations, owners, and managers of agricultural facilities who play a role in animal cruelty. His scholarship on animal law, the Supreme Court, the First Amendment, and regulation of new food technologies like plant-based and cultivated meat, has been cited in Australian Parliamentary Reports, state senate hearings, European Parliamentary hearings, U.S. federal court, and popular news outlets like Vox and American Banker. You can read his monthly Animal Law Updates on One Green Planet, and you can download his law review and peer-reviewed articles for free on his SSRN page.
Jareb attended Cornell Law School on a full merit scholarship, where he graduated tenth in his class, magna cum laude, with multiple awards for academic excellence, trial and appellate advocacy competitions, and clinical defense work. He received his B.A. from Amherst College, magna cum laude. Please visit his webpage to help support animals.
Piper Hoffman
Senior director of legal advocacy
As Senior Director of Legal Advocacy at national farmed animal advocacy group Animal Outlook, Piper Hoffman leads AO’s campaign to challenge the animal agriculture industry through the legal system, drawing on over 20 years of experience as a litigator.
Under her leadership the group’s work has included taking a major national charity to court for labeling certain animal products as heart healthy, bringing legal complaints that ultimately led to a court edict barring a family-owned slaughterhouse from torturing cows to produce dog food, and securing criminal cruelty charges against the owners of slaughterhouses and CAFOs in multiple states.
For many years Piper taught Animal Law as an adjunct professor, at New York University Law School and Brooklyn Law School. She earned her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where, as a student, she led the successful campaign for the school to become one of the first in the country to teach Animal Law.
Piper went vegan in the 20th century. In her free time, she and her husband spoil the rescue-cat members of their family in their Brooklyn home.
LaKia Roberts
Director of Operations
LaKia Roberts is the Director of Operations at Animal Outlook where they oversee the strategic planning, coordination, and execution of key initiatives to advance animal rights and welfare. With a passion for creating systemic change and a deep commitment to ethical treatment of animals, LaKia ensures that the organization’s day-to-day operations align with its mission and core values. Before joining Animal Outlook, LaKia held positions such as Development Coordinator and Member Communications Manager at other animal advocacy nonprofit organizations.
LaKia holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Trinity University, and has 10 years of experience working in nonprofit organizations, with a particular focus on animal advocacy. They are driven by a vision of a more compassionate world for all living beings and are dedicated to ensuring that the organization’s operations reflect its values of integrity, transparency, and accountability.
Cheryl Ruggiero
general counsel
Cheryl Ruggiero is an experienced attorney who has litigated state and federal cases, mainly in employment discrimination, civil rights, and animal law matters, on behalf of injured clients. During her extensive career, Cheryl has performed general counsel duties for three different corporations, one being a wolf sanctuary, and recently joined Animal Outlook for that purpose. Cheryl is an animal advocate; she founded and operated, for 15 years, a nonprofit organization that provided food and veterinary care for pets of eligible households.
Cheryl earned her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and juris doctorate from Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan, New York. During law school, Cheryl volunteered at Legal Aid and practiced as a law clerk for a firm specializing in elder law. Upon graduating, Cheryl spent a year as the first Milken Fellow working at Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles, performing legal services for the poor and elderly. After acquiring trial skills with an insurance defense firm, Cheryl started her own practice, bringing in her brother as her law partner in 2006. In addition to handling matters of employment law, animal law, and civil rights, Cheryl represents physicians before the California Medical Board and advises businesses in employment and contract matters.
Erin Wing
Deputy Director of Investigations
Erin Wing is currently serving as the Deputy Director of Investigations for Animal Outlook and previously worked as an undercover investigator. Over the course of 2 years, she went on to complete 4 investigations in the dairy, chicken and aquaculture industries, including the first-ever undercover expose of salmon aquaculture in the U.S.
Erin's investigations and her advocacy work shed light on the interconnection of human and animal exploitation that occurs on farms in the animal agriculture system. She sincerely shares personal accounts from her compelling background to illustrate the dangers speciesism poses to all sentient beings on the planet. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The New York Times.
Erin currently lives at pig sanctuary Heartwood Haven in Roy, Washington with her partner and two cats, Nugget and Onion.
Financial Reports
Your Donation Dollars at Work for Animals
Your generous donations have been helping us expose the truth about animal agriculture and inspire people to choose compassion for 30 years. We rely on donors, like you, to continue our mission.
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