My Journey in Pursuing Animal Law

I am grateful to have received the scholarship from AFA. It was my first step into animal law and completely changed my trajectory of the classes I took, the positions I applied for, and ultimately my career. This scholarship introduced me to a broad range of animal law topics, which allowed me to see myself in the industry. The conference also introduced me to Humane Education, which inspired me to start a fellowship project. I cannot thank AFA and Bee enough for their help in this scholarship which was the start to my journey in pursuing animal law.

JENNIFER BASS

I was recently very excited to be accepted as a Brooks Fellow where I will receive my Animal Law LLM from Lewis and Clark Law School. I will be focusing on international animal law and I hope to work toward becoming a professor. Prior to law school, I received my Masters of Business Administration with an emphasis in leadership. I will be graduating in May 2024 with my JD from Vermont Law and Graduate School (VLGS) with an animal law concentration. During my educational journey at VLGS I became a Staff Editor for Volume 24 of the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, where I drafted a Note on a new litigation strategy to stop the use of 6PPD in tires, which is obliterating the salmon population, and in consequence the Southern Resident killer whales. I have since spoken on the topic at multiple legal conferences including at ALDF’s Animal Law Student Conference in March and at George Washington University’s Animals and the Anthropocene in October of 2023. I also helped lead a notice and comment workshop on the topic with ALDF. My Note was published in the Chicago-Kent Journal of Environmental and Energy Law this year. Now, I am a Symposium Editor in VJEL, where my topic of nature-based solutions to climate change was chosen. In my second year, I was also a Schweitzer Fellow in humane education, which included drafting legislation and teaching humane education to local elementary school children.

My professional experience during law school has included internships and clinic work. I worked as a student clinician, and now am an advanced student clinician, at the Transnational Environmental Law Clinic at the U.S.-Asia Partnerships for Environmental Law at VLGS, where I conducted a comparative law study on nature-based solutions in the United States and the European Union. My current project seeks to bring nature-based solutions carbon projects to Indigenous Peoples in China and beyond. I was also a student clinician at the Environmental Advocacy Clinic for two semesters, where I worked closely with supervising attorneys on an endangered species bats case and developed my legal research, writing, and litigation skills. I will also be published on animal law topics through my summer internship with Materra including wildlife trafficking. Alongside my coursework, I was a legal intern with C-Quest Capital where I was assisting implementing nature-based solutions draw down projects internationally. I was also featured in AFA’s May 2022 newsletter. I worked for the International Fund for Animal Welfare performing wildlife regulation research. I also worked on an animal law research project with Professor Kysar at Yale University. I have a forthcoming publication on scrubbers with the IALC. I have been invited to speak at the UK Animal Law Conference 2024 on the Corporate Social Responsibility panel.

I want to thank everyone on my journey so far for all of the help and guidance that I have received. Including my Professors, Internships, and Clinics. I especially want to thank AFA for starting me on this amazing journey of helping me find and obtain my dreams of becoming an animal law professor.