From an AKC press release:
AKC has joined with the AVMA, the Cat Fanciers’ Association, and the Animal Health Institute to establish the Animal Law Writing Contest for Law Students .
The contest is part of a shared effort by concerned mainstream animal welfare groups to ensure access and familiarity with a broad range of perspectives on animal law. The contest launches this month and welcomes all scholarly viewpoints.
Students currently enrolled at ABA-accredited law schools located in the United States are invited to write a 10-20 page scholarly paper on the constitutionality of one of two preselected animal law topics. A committee with relevant experience will judge all properly-submitted entries received by Noon on February 15, 2015 . The winner, who will be notified by April 1, 2015 , will receive a $2,500 cash prize and a trip to the American Veterinary Medical Law Association’s Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, next July. The second place author will receive a $1,000 cash prize.
What the heck? Why do all these animal groups want to encourage MORE animal laws and lawyers to deal with them? What am I missing here, are we playing right into the hands of the ARs? Somehow I doubt these folks are taught how to exercise conservative restraint in the legal arena.
I received some opinions that "moderate voices" in law schools should be encouraged, and indeed, if by hinting at constitutionality of these new laws they are seeking a conservative viewpoint to win this contest, that would be great. But how many "animal law" students out there are actually conservative instead of progressive?
Thoughts from one well-educated person:
This upsets me so much. Guess where most of the submissions will come from.....Lewis & Clark Law School or Tufts? Or how about these suggestions from the ALDF:
There is no possible upside for the AKC or people in the dog fancy from this contest. All it will do is provide arguments for A/R advocates. I can see it now....."This argument was supported by the winning paper in the AKC Animal Law Writing Contest."
This contest is yet another boneheaded idea from the AKC. (And the selection of topics was boneheaded, too.) What if the only submissions are from A/R-influenced lawyers-in-the-making who find "support" for the ban in Chicago or MSN in LA?
And here's why I think an AR-only outcome is highly likely . . .
The largest percentage of law school students want to end up in firms or businesses -- no one enters law school burning to fight against AR tide. Animal law probably won’t add to those students’ resumes. (Hey, I went to professional school in the ancient past (Northwestern, MBA, ’85), and I would never have written an extra-curricular paper or undertaken an internship in the non-profit sector. Why would an MBA student serious about working in the corporate sector divert his attention from the brass ring?) Why would a lawyer-in-the-making divert his attention from getting a job at the end of three years, especially to enter a contest with a modest payout and regarding a sector of the law with no active, high-profile suits.
Those students really interested in animal law are ideologues interested in working for advocacy organizations, like the HSUS, ASPCA, PeTA, ALDF, prosecutors’ offices and others further down the food chain. A great paper could get these students a job and “stick it to those animal abusers” at the same time.
When I hear commenters holding out for the pipe dream of moderation, I really become concerned. Where does moderation fit into this contest? This isn't a discussion. Writers will bring their positions to the table through the strength of their citations and analyses. Will there be a killer argument presented? Probably not. (The constitutional analyses will probably focus on "reserved powers,""illegal taking," and possible "interstate commerce.") But I can hear it now from the city attorney of LA or Pasadena or Long Beach, "The analysis posed by the winner of the AKC Animal Law Writing Contest completely supports our position." Note the use of AKC in the previous sentence.
In summary, I believe that this contest will only provide a forum for AR advocates and will ultimately hinder those of us in the field actually fighting MSN and various seller bans.
An experienced lawyer expressed his opinion:
As an attorney who has practiced law
for over 50 years; who once was a law student; and who has devoted
over 23,000 hours to studying and documenting the “brainwashing”
efforts of the HSUS and Mr. Pacelle - - (who described his book, The
Bond, as “part memoir, part manifesto”) - I have grave,
grave, grave concerns that the contest will ultimately lead to
unexpected, irreversible and devastating consequences because Mr.
Pacelle and the HSUS have expended over ONE BILLION DOLLARS in their
unrelenting efforts to “brainwash” all segments of our American
society. That includes, but is not limited to, the American public,
news media, elected officials at all levels of government, government
agencies, such as USDA (which hired Sarah L. Conant, a former HSUS
ligitation attorney, who, when a law student at the University of
Virginia Law School, organized a law school sanctioned animal law
group), the Department of Justice, (which hired Ethan Eddy, a former
HSUS litigation attorney who tutored Sarah L. Conant), law
enforcement officials at all levels of government, our churches, and
our pre-schools, elementary middle and high schools, and yes, the
American Bar Association, and law schools!
MY TOP REASONS FOR CONCERN:
-
Be careful of what you ask and
wish for…………….. especially when the ever present shadow of
the HSUS has infiltrated and influenced the “process.”
Three years ago, I documented how
the HSUS had “hijacked” and was infiltrating the legal
profession, which started nearly 10 years ago at law schools. And
this effort was not limited to Sarah L. Conant! EACH YEAR MORE AND
MORE LAW SCHOOLS ESTABLISH “ANIMAL LAW” CURRICULUMS THAT ARE
INFLUENCED BY THE INPUT OF THE HSUS!!!
In March of 2009, I attended a
Workshop at the Georgetown Law School that was Co-Hosted by the
HSUS. Opening remarks of the Dean of the Georgetown Law School
predicted that the growth of “Animal Law” would mirror the
growth of Environmental Laws and Regulations that followed the
passage of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) in 1969.
And the growth of Animal Law Curriculums has continued to grow each
year at more and more law schools, which are being “guided” by
the clandestine efforts of the HSUS.
A Co-Moderator of the Workshop
was Jonathan Lovvorn, an Adjunct Law Professor at Georgetown Law
School, who also serves as the HSUS VP and Chief of the HSUS
Litigation Division, and who also was a named defendant in the Feld
Lawsuit for his role in the alleged “money laundering” and RICO
Violations.
The other Co-Moderator of the
Workshop was Nancy Perry, the Wife of Jonathan Lovvorn, and who then
served as the HSUS VP for Government Relations (Lobbying) and now
serves as the Senior VP for Government Relations (Lobbying) for
ASPCA.
One of the Panelist on the
Workshop was Congressman Whitfield, who is now the subject of a
Congressional Ethics Investigation because he purportedly allowed
his wife, who serves as the Chief Lobbyist for the HSUS, to use his
Office to Lobby other Members of Congress to support the HSUS
Legislative Agenda.
Yet another panelist on the
Workshop was a Senior Official within the American Veterinary
Medical Association. And when he was asked why the AVMA was not more
supportive of the welfare and rights of animals, he prophetically
responded that the demographics of the Leadership of the AVMA would
change over the next 5 years as the older vets retired and were
replaced by younger vets who focused on the care for dogs and cats.
Yet another 2009 HSUS Workshop
Panelist was a USDA Attorney, who co-authored an HSUS 2009 Workshop
Handout, and who currently is the immediate supervisor of Sarah L.
Conant!
As a result of the HSUS efforts,
the American Bar Association has established an “Animal Law
Section,” that is operated by young attorneys who have drunk the
HSUS “Kool-Aid.”
In 2013 Mr. Pacelle was a
featured speaker at the Annual Conference for the 50 State Attorney
Generals.
In the last 11 Years more than
2,000 attorneys have provided tens of thousands of pro bono (free)
hours of legal services to the HSUS Legislative and Litigation
Agendas of the HSUS. In short, the Billion Dollar Brainwashing
Campaign of the HSUS has been supplemented by the equivalent of Tens
of Millions of Dollars of free legal services. And many of the young
attorneys, who were recently “law school students,” and who are
providing these free legal services to the HSUS work for some of the
largest Law Firms in the U.S. which freely have designated young
attorneys to work full time for the HSUS for up to a year so that
the Law Firms may report to the State Bar Associations that they
provided thousands of hours of pro bono services. These pro bono
services are a major reason why Wayne Pacelle has been able to claim
that the HSUS was responsible for the passage of over 1,000 laws at
the Federal and State Levels of Government, and that number does not
include the State Ballot Initiatives nor the Federal Regulations,
such as the Retail Pet Store Rule.
Let's hope that the winner is NOT a lackey of the HSUS, but that seems rather unlikely.
