Clinical Professor of Law & Animal Law Clinic Director

• Animal Law
• Animal Law Clinic
• Center for Animal Law Studies (CALS)

LL.M., 1997, Georgetown University Law Center
J.D., 1987, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William and Mary
B.A., 1985, George Washington University

Kathy Hessler is a clinical professor of law and director of the only animal law clinic in the country.  She is the first faculty member hired to teach animal law full-time in a law school.  She received her LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center and graduated with a J.D. from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary.

Prior to teaching at Lewis & Clark, Professor Hessler taught in clinical programs at Case Western Reserve University Law School, Cornell Law School, the University of Dayton Law School, the Capital University School of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center.

Professor Hessler has been an animal activist and vegan since the late 1980’s.  She has been an advisor to the journal Animal Law since 1998, she coaches Lewis & Clark representatives for the National Animal Law Competitions, and has been teaching animal law directly for eight years and as a part of nonviolence courses beginning in 1989.  She was a board member with Animal Legal Defense Fund and helped found the Animal Law Committee of the Cuyahoga County Bar.  She is the chair and a founder of the Animal Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools.  She co-authored the amicus curaie brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Stevens, on behalf of 45 animal law professors from across the country.  She has written articles for law reviews and bar publications as well as books (including the first Animal Law in a Nutshell) on the topic of animal law.

Professor Hessler lectures widely on animal law and animal law education issues and has spoken at Harvard and Yale and at many other law schools in the U.S. and also in Canada, Brazil and Japan.