From Orcas to Elephants, PETA Foundation's Landmark Litigation Leads to Banner Year
The legal team behind the controversial animal-rights activist group has a year of stunning successes including banning of new orca whales from CA SeaWorld and shuttering of world-famous Ringling Bros. Circus.
June 01, 2017 at 03:52 PM
28 minute read
It may not have been until 2017 that Corporate Counsel named the team behind People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Inc. one of the best legal departments , but the award is decades in the making. After all, that's about as long as it took to bring down a nearly 150-year-old institution, the fabled Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. As if that win weren't enough, PETA also recently defeated SeaWorld San Diego's request before a California regulator to expand its orca tanks, forcing the tourist attraction to announce that it will no longer breed orcas, a David-and-Goliath battle whose outcome was far from certain.
Regardless of one's opinion of PETA's crusade against Ringling Bros. and SeaWorld, it would be difficult for even their fiercest opponent to ignore that it was the activist group's attorneys' tough legal minds that have fundamentally shifted the animal law landscape in this country.
Credit: ALM
PETA and its operations are supported by the separate PETA Foundation, the 19-attorney legal department of which handles all legal issues for the world's largest animal rights organization. While that work includes groundbreaking litigation and other action to enforce or extend legal protection to animals, it also includes what most legal departments do—protect intellectual property, ensure compliance, negotiate property acquisitions and sales, and other corporate functions.
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