Animal Law Symposium 2025

Dr. Crystal Heath is a Los Angeles-based shelter veterinarian and the Executive Director of Our Honor, a nonprofit that supports veterinary students, veterinarians, and other animal professionals in speaking their conscience to create more ethical systems that consider the best interests of all species. She is also on the board of LEAP – Leaders for Ethics Animals and the Planet, known as the humane alternative to 4-H and FFA, which aims to transform today’s youth into the humane leaders of tomorrow who advocate for and work towards an equitable future for all living beings and the planet. Dr. Heath is also on the founding committee of Veterinarians Against Ventilation Shutdown. Dr. Heath was named one of Vox’s 2023 Future Perfect 50, which honors the scientists, thinkers, scholars, writers, and activists working on solutions to today’s (and tomorrow’s) biggest problems.

Steven Roach, MA is the Safe & Healthy Food Program Director at Food Animal Concerns Trust. In addition to his work at FACT, Steve is a senior analyst for Keep Antibiotics Working, a coalition of advocacy organizations that have joined forces to combat the overuse of antibiotics in food animals. He represented Consumers International in the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Food and at the Codex Ad hoc Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance and has served on a World Health Organization advisory group. Steve’s work focuses on identifying and promoting policies that protect consumers from the adverse health impacts of industrial animal agriculture.

As a managing attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Amanda Howell uses her background in strategic impact litigation to help us win big for animals. Prior to joining us, Amanda’s career was focused on improving the food system and curbing the harmful practices of multinational corporations. Her current work has focused on Constitutional challenges to protectionist state labeling laws targeting plant-based products and bringing humane- and greenwashing consumer protection class actions to address the misleading marketing practices of industrialized animal agribusiness.

Zeynep Graves is a Senior Attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, where she focuses on protecting California’s desert region and adjacent areas. Before joining the Center, Zeynep served as Associate Director of Litigation at the PETA Foundation, where she litigated on behalf of wild and captive animals and developed legal strategies to combat their exploitation in commercial industries. Her work has resulted in the transfer of dozens of animals from roadside zoos to sanctuaries and contributed to the U.S. Department of Justice’s seizure of 69 big cats from a now-defunct roadside zoo. Zeynep began her legal career while articling at Animal Justice in Toronto, Ontario. She earned her J.D. from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is a member of the State Bar of California.

Mary Hollingsworth is the Director of the Animal Law & Policy Clinic and a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law. Prior to joining the Harvard Law School faculty, she served as a Senior Trial Attorney in the Wildlife & Marine Resources Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division. For over a decade, she litigated cases arising under the Endangered Species Act in federal courts around the country. She also led the Justice Department’s efforts to enforce the civil components of federal animal welfare statutes, including in United States v. Lowe, United States v. Gingerich, United States v. Envigo, United States v. Keeler, and United States v. Mikirticheva. She also collaborated with the United States Marshals Service and others to create and implement a program to seize dogs from those suspected of engaging in illegal dogfighting operations. Those efforts have resulted in the rescue of over 3,000 dogs to date. During her career at the Justice Department, she received the John Marshall Award from the Attorney General twice for her animal welfare work. Prior to joining the Justice Department as an Honors Attorney, she clerked for the Honorable Judge G. Murray Snow of the District of Arizona and the Honorable Justice Michael Ryan of the Arizona Supreme Court. She received her B.A. in Political Science and Russian & East European Studies from the University of Michigan and her J.D. from the University of Arizona, summa cum laude.

Delcianna Winders is an associate professor of law and Director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at VLGS. Professor Winders previously taught at Lewis & Clark Law School, where she directed the world’s first law school clinic dedicated to farmed animal advocacy. She served as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at the PETA Foundation, was the first Academic Fellow of the Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program and was a visiting scholar at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Her primary interests are in animal law and administrative law. She has also taught animal law at Tulane University School of Law and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. Her work has appeared in the Denver Law Review, Florida State Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, NYU Law Review, and the Animal Law Review. Winders has also published extensively in the popular press, including The Hill, National Geographic, Newsweek, New York Daily News, Salon, U.S.A. Today, and numerous other outlets. Winders received her BA in Legal Studies with highest honors from the University California at Santa Cruz and her JD from NYU School of Law. Following law school, Winders clerked for the Hon. Martha Craig Daughtrey on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and practiced animal law in a variety of settings.

As Managing Attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Daniel Waltz develops creative legal strategies to advocate for improved welfare and increased protections for animals. His work focuses on advocating for animals used in factory farming and for wildlife (both captive and wild).

Daniel first worked with the Animal Legal Defense Fund as a litigation fellow from 2012 to 2014. He then went on to spend two years as a staff attorney and teaching fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s environmental law clinic, and two years as a staff attorney at The Humane Society of the United States before returning to the Animal Legal Defense Fund litigation team where he first started.

Daniel has published scholarships in the Animal Law Review, Georgetown Environmental Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. He has a B.A. from Tufts University, J.D. from New York University School of Law, and LL.M in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center. Daniel is admitted to practice in Washington State and the District of Columbia.

Will Lowrey is the founder and Legal Counsel for Animal Partisan, a legal advocacy organization focused on challenging unlawful conduct at farms, slaughterhouses, and laboratories. Will previously spent several years as Legal Counsel for Animal Outlook, a national nonprofit farmed animal protection organization, where he divided his time between civil litigation and undercover investigations. Will has engaged in numerous lawsuits, as well as criminal and administrative enforcement actions against the government, industrial agriculture, and research laboratories, including cases involving federal slaughter laws, public records, false advertising, public nuisance, animal cruelty, and others. Will has taught Animal Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, Vermont Law and Graduate School, and the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Before law school, Will worked as a senior process engineer at a large financial corporation and in his free time, helped run several non-profits focused on a variety of animal issues. Will currently resides in rural Virginia with a number of formerly farmed animals and writes animal-related fiction novels in his spare time.

Asher Smith is Director of Litigation and Deputy General Counsel for the PETA Foundation. His cases include actions under the Endangered Species Act against roadside zoos, constitutional lawsuits on behalf of both animals and humans, and false advertising claims challenging the deceptive marketing of animal products as “humane.” He has previously won precedent-setting victories against exhibitors featured on the Netflix show Tiger King (and helped shut down multiple of these roadside zoos for good), as well as against major players in the animal experimentation industry and some of the country’s largest humane-marketed egg and dairy brands. Smith joined the PETA Foundation in 2018 after working for the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York on matters including multibillion-dollar securities litigation, anti-trust matters, and the fight for gay marriage in the deep south and at the Supreme Court. He is a graduate of Yale Law School.

Lisa Zycherman is the Reporters Committee’s vice president of legal programming. She supervises Reporters Committee staff attorneys and legal fellows providing direct litigation and amicus support on issues affecting journalists and documentary filmmakers, including obtaining access to public records, access to court proceedings, and legal defense. As policy counsel, she also spearheads efforts to promote federal and state legislation on issues affecting newsgathering including anti-SLAPP measures, reporters’ shield, and government access.

Prior to joining the Reporters Committee, Zycherman was counsel at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, where she specialized in media and First Amendment litigation. During her 15 years in private practice, she worked on FOIA and court access issues, represented news and advocacy organizations in fighting SLAPP suits, and counseled media organizations on all manner of newsgathering and pre-publication and pre-broadcast matters.

In 2019, Zycherman was named a Washington, D.C. “Rising Star” by the National Law Journal. She serves as an Executive Committee member of the Council for Court Excellence where she seeks to improve access to justice in the District of Columbia. She is also a frequent speaker on legal issues facing journalists, documentary filmmakers, and non-profit advocacy organizations.

Zycherman is a 2004 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law, where she was a member of the editorial board of the Maryland Law Review. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 2001, with honors, with a B.A. in English and a B.A. in History.

Caitlin Hawks is a lifelong animal advocate with many years of nonprofit leadership experience. As Chief Programs Officer, Caitlin oversees the Animal Law, Criminal Justice, Legislative Affairs, Litigation, and Pro Bono Programs. Prior to joining the Animal Legal Defense Fund, she founded and oversaw the litigation division at the PETA Foundation. She has handled matters arising under the Endangered Species Act, consumer protection statutes, the First Amendment, public nuisance law, the Freedom of Information Act and state public records statutes, and the Administrative Procedure Act, and likewise advised on criminal animal cruelty issues and proposed legislation.

Before transitioning to animal law on a full-time basis, Caitlin practiced complex commercial and intellectual property litigation at Milbank LLP in Los Angeles and Savitt Bruce & Willey LLP in Seattle and handled a variety of animal law and prisoners’ rights matters on a pro bono basis. She received her law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 2008.

Caitlin lives in Seattle with her partner and their rescue mutt, Huddie. Outside of work, she spends her free time chasing live music around the Pacific Northwest and obsessing about her never-ending quest to make the perfect loaf of sourdough bread.

Daina Bray is a clinical lecturer in law and the legal director of the Law, Environment & Animals Program at Yale Law School, where she leads the Climate Change and Animal Agriculture Litigation Initiative. Daina has extensive animal law, international, nonprofit, and litigation practice experience, and a sustained and pragmatic commitment to making a positive difference in the ways that we interact with non-human animals. She previously served as general counsel of the nonprofits Mercy for Animals and the International Fund for Animal Welfare and practiced with major international law firms in the areas of litigation and international arbitration. Daina is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates and a past chair of the ABA International Animal Law Committee, the ABA TIPS Animal Law Committee, and the Tennessee Bar Association Animal Law Section. She is a Director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the International Coalition for Animal Protection, and a member of the Animal Defense Partnership Advisory Council. Daina received a JD from Stanford Law School with pro bono distinction, a BA in international studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain Scholar, a Fulbright scholarship for research in environmental education, and the 2021 ABA Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award.

Chris Green is the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s executive director, assuming the role in September 2023. He rejoins the Animal Legal Defense Fund having established the organization’s Legislative Affairs Program and served as its director from 2013–2015. For the past eight years, Chris has been the inaugural executive director of the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School — where he helped launch the Harvard Animal Law & Policy Clinic and grew the Program from an initial staff of three to now having over 30 faculty, staff, lecturers, scholars, researchers, and fellows.

During his animal law career, Chris has helped defeat Ag-Gag legislation in several states, helped pass and defend farmed animal protection ballot measures, directed efforts that led SeaWorld San Diego to halt the breeding and import of new orcas, served on a National Academies committee that caused the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs to stop using dogs in biomedical research, and persuaded the top three U.S. airlines to cease transporting African hunting trophies. After a conference in China, Chris also rescued Lily, a terrified Samoyed dog who was about to be slaughtered for food at a back-alley butcher stand, and she subsequently spent her remaining years living happily with his parents in Illinois.

Chris helped inaugurate the American Bar Association’s TIPS Animal Law Committee in 2005 and served as its chair in 2015. In that capacity he successfully enacted ABA-wide policy resolutions recommending that all U.S. legislative bodies outlaw the possession of dangerous wild animals and provide police officers with non-lethal animal encounter training. In 2022, the American Bar Association honored Chris with its award for “Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law.”

Chris’ own academic scholarship has been published in the Animal Law Review, and he has consulted on animal legal issues with dozens of major media outlets.

Chris is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he took the school’s first course in Animal Law, and the University of Illinois, where he created the school’s first Environmental Science degree. He also spent several decades working in the fine arts, film, and music industries — producing documentaries that include Of Dogs and Men, a film about police shooting people’s companion animals. Chris currently resides in Illinois where he still manages a farm that has remained in his family for 186 years.