Animal Law Review
First Page
49
Abstract
Animal law has grown exponentially since its genesis in the late 1970s. It is the subject of survey courses, seminars, clinics, and law reviews. But animal law per se has not made its way into the legal writing discipline, and its absence creates missed opportunities for legal writing instructors to improve our teaching and help our students develop critical lawyering skills. This Article argues that we should seize these opportunities and incorporate animal law into legal writing classes.
The Article begins by summarizing the argument and offering a gen-eral description of how legal writing professors and their students stand to benefit from animal law. Next, the Article provides a brief overview of animal law as both a legal practice area and an academic field. It then moves to a discussion of the specific ways in which animal law can improve legal writ-ing pedagogy. These include the subject’s timeliness, novelty, and practical-ity, as well as its capacity to introduce students to emotionally challenging aspects of lawyering. The Article illustrates these benefits in action through accounts of animal law exercises that the author designed and assigned to his legal writing students, including an objective memorandum problem. The social justice issues implicated by such assignments reflect animal law and legal writing’s shared disciplinary commitment to compassionate yet practical lawyering. A Conclusion offers directions for future research on this topic and explains why using animal law to teach legal writing will benefit the entire legal profession.
Recommended Citation
Conley Wouters,
Social Justice, Practical Lawyering, and the Elephant in Solitary Confinement: Why Animal Law Belongs in the Legal Writing Classroom,
31
Animal L. Rev.
49
(2025).
Available at:
https://lawcommons.lclark.edu/alr/vol31/iss2/3