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Kathy Hessler

Kathy is Assistant Dean, Animal Legal Education at George Washington University Law School and Director of the Animal Legal Education Initiative. Kathy has been a clinical law professor for 30 years and has been teaching animal law for 22 years. She is the first law professor hired to teach animal law full-time. Kathy helped develop the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School (L&C). For fourteen years she taught there and directed the Animal Law Clinic. She also created and directed the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative and is the co-founder of World Aquatic Animal Day along with Amy P. Wilson. Kathy co-authored “Animal Law in a Nutshell”, “Animal Law – New Perspectives on  Teaching Traditional Law” and the amicus briefs submitted in the U.S. v. Stevens and Justice v. Gwendolyn Vercher cases. She has written numerous law review and other articles and teaches and lectures widely across the U.S. and internationally.

Kathy was a board member with the Animal Legal Defense Fund; helped found the Animal Law Committee of the Cuyahoga County Bar; and was the chair and a founder of the Animal Law Section and the Balance in Legal Education Section of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS). She was also a co-chair of the Clinical Legal Education Section of the AALS, is on the board of the Center for Teaching Peace and is a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.

Kathy is vegan and has (at least) a sentiocentric moral scope. Kathy is non-religious and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find our Sentientist Conversation here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast.

Kathy at GWU
Kathy’s papers at SSRN

Latest work

Tilted head shot of Robert Grillo smiling towards the camera. Blurred background.

“The Farm Bill is corrupted, spoiled, rotten” – Robert Grillo of ‪Free From Harm – Sentientism Ep:206

Robert Grillo is founder and director of Free from Harm. A Sentientism conversation about "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?"
More

“The Farm Bill is corrupted, spoiled, rotten” – Robert Grillo of ‪Free From Harm – Sentientism Ep:206

Robert Grillo is founder and director of Free from Harm. A Sentientism conversation about "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?"
More

Living With Death Without God – An Interview with author Valerie Jack

Valerie Jack is the author of "Living with Death without God". A Sentientism interview about "what's real?" "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?"
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“I plant seeds for children… to think for themselves” Louisa Jane Smith of The Religious Education Podcast – Sentientism Ep:205

Louisa Jane Smith is host of The RE Podcast (religious education). A Sentientism conversation about "what's real?" and "who matters?"
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