Advancing Animal Law

Each year, Animal Outlook’s Legal Advocacy Program works in partnership with law schools and students to bolster the field of animal law, empowering and equipping current students to contribute vital work to groundbreaking litigation and to become future advocates for animals. By fostering growth in the field of animal law, we aim to expand the field of advocates working to file lawsuits, pass legislation and creatively utilize the legal system to alleviate the suffering of animals, dismantle exploitative systems, and advance cultural norms to protect animals.    

INTERNSHIPS & EXTERNSHIPS

Each law school semester — spring, summer and fall — Animal Outlook’s Legal Advocacy Program hosts two to four law students as externs or interns to work with us using the legal system to fight the systemic injustices of factory farming. 

Our interns and externs work under the direct supervision of our attorneys and play a vital role, contributing meaningful work to litigation and policy projects aimed at protecting farmed animals. Interns and externs learn to employ a variety of legal theories relating to areas such as state criminal cruelty laws, administrative law, false advertising and unfair competition laws, tort liability, and corporate law. In addition to making valuable contributions, our interns and externs gain valuable, practical experience in the field of animal law, building their substantive knowledge base, honing research and writing skills, and preparing for a future legal career helping animals. Our students regularly have the opportunity to develop and work on novel case ideas, in addition to ongoing projects.

Over the years, Animal Outlook has hosted students from Harvard, Georgetown, UCLA, Duke, Yale, Cornell, Lewis and Clark, USC, Stanford, Texas, American University, Arizona, Minnesota, and many others. 

If you’re interested in doing an internship or externship with Animal Outlook, check here for available opportunities. 

LAW SCHOOL PROJECT COLLABORATIONS

Animal Outlook regularly partners with law schools across the country, including clinics, student groups, and individual students, to work on projects in support of our Legal Advocacy Program. Each project is unique and Animal Outlook crafts them to ensure a fit between Animal Outlook’s legal needs and the school or student’s individual interests, resources, educational goals, and capabilities.

Law school collaborations typically consist of oversight by a supervising instructor at the law school along with direct interaction with and supervision by Animal Outlook attorneys through recurring meetings, presentations and review of written materials. Our collaborations are flexible and can take many forms, sometimes fulfilling student credit as clinic projects or independent research projects, and in other cases satisfying pro bono hour commitments or individual student interests.

Past and current collaborations include Harvard, Yale, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California-Irvine, Lewis & Clark, the University of Virginia, and Vermont Law School. Clinical projects have included work in clinics focused on animal law, food law, environmental law, and labor law,

If your law school is interested in partnering with Animal Outlook, please email us at legal@animaloutlook.org. 

LAW SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS

In addition to internships, externships and project collaborations, Animal Outlook regularly guest lectures for law school courses and presents to groups of interested law students and other interested members of the law school community and beyond. Our attorneys frequently engage with Professors of Animal Law and related topics, Student Animal Legal Defense Fund chapters or other student groups, including environmental groups, criminal justice groups or others, to discuss the intersection of farmed animals and the law and to share our experiences fighting to end systemic injustice. 

Past presentations have focused on a wide range of topics including current or previous litigation, undercover investigations, policy work or careers in animal law. 

If your law school student group would like to host an Animal Outlook presentation, please email legal@animaloutlook.org.