Kathy Hessler

Kathy Hessler is a clinical professor of law and director of the only animal law clinic in the country. She is the first faculty member hired to teach animal law full time in a law school. She received her LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center and graduated with a J.D. from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary.

Prior to teaching at Lewis & Clark, Professor Hessler taught in clinical programs at Case Western Reserve University Law School, Cornell Law School, the University of Dayton Law School, the Capital University School of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center.

She has been an animal activist and vegan since the late 1980's. She has been an advisor to the journal Animal Law since 1998, she coaches the animal moot court teams, and has been teaching Animal Law directly for 8 years and as a part of nonviolence courses beginning in 1989. She was a board member with ALDF and helped found the Animal Law Committee of the Cuyahoga County Bar. She is the chair and a founder of the Animal Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools. She co-authored the amicus brief submitted in the U.S. v. Stevens case, on behalf of 45 law professors who teach animal law.  She has written law review articles and is writing two books on animal law.

Professor Hessler lectures widely on animal law and animal law education issues and has spoken at Harvard and Yale as well as over a dozen other law schools in the US and in Canada and Japan.