Hi Rory, I went to the COK page, but the only current petition is the letter to the FDA, which is kind of logistically complicated to do. Is it possible for COK to collect an online petition, then submit the whole thing to the FDA? There will be more participation that way, because it's so easy to do. I will send a letter anyway, I just thought I'd mention the low-effort alternative.

-- AmandaBell - 15 Jun 2010

These are just a few of my thoughts and I'm sure I'll be adding more, but I hope people really pick this up.

I'm working at a small animal rights non-profit in DC called Compassion Over Killing (check out the site, learn a little, maybe sign a petition or two!). My first impression was that I should have paid closer attention during the research sessions for our LPW. During the memo-writing process for class we had pretty targeted searches to do so the research didn't seem too overwhelming, but my second day I was given some big research projects and it's daunting how much there is to find, and how inefficient I think I am at finding it. I've already gotten better (practice makes perfect), but I think I really underestimated how big a job legal research can be. Especially when one of your projects is "there's never really been a lawsuit like this, so see if you can think of a novel cause of action." Such is the uncharted territory of animal law.

The past two days I've been attending a meat industry conference at the USDA. Aside from all the humorous anecdotes I could share, like the PR lady who was an exact replica of the characters in 'Thank You For Smoking', it's been an eye-opening experience that has reminded me of lots of things we talked about in this class. First of all, the idea that creeds and rhetoric are not really directed at the opponents to a group but to the members of the group themselves is exceedingly apparent. Without going into too much detail, it's been a lot of beef, swine and poultry people telling themselves that what they're doing is OK and it's consumers and activists who just don't understand. It's been kind of funny listening to the same phrases being used over and over again, sort of like affirmation that we are right and they are wrong, with no gray area in between.

I've also realized that what is going on is an old institution is no longer serving everyone's needs, and the small activist groups are coming in to fill the gap, with the old institution digging in its heels and refusing to admit things are changing and that they need to adapt. It's exciting to be involved in such a changing area, although there is a ton of work to be done and animal advocates are still at a gigantic disadvantage money and influence-wise.

I'll update with more lawyering-focused stuff another time, but like I said I hope we can pool our experience to learn about different areas of law and what they encompass, what challenges they face, etc.

-- RorySkaggs - 09 Jun 2010

<--/commentPlugin-->