Lora Dunn provides editorial and research support for ALDF’s Criminal Justice Program by tracking our legislative reports and assisting prosecutors throughout the country in animal cruelty cases. Lora received her JD from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, where she focused on environmental and animal law and received the Dean’s Scholarship for Excellence.
As a law student, Lora served on the board of Lewis & Clark’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) chapter, clerked for ALDF and the Animal Law Clinic at the Center for Animal Law Studies (CALS), and interned with the Oregon Humane Society’s Investigations Department. As an ALDF clerk, Lora assisted in the drafting of ALDF’s amicus brief in State v. Nix, a seminal Oregon Court of Appeals decision that ruled that every abused animal is a separate victim of a crime. Lora also helped coordinate the 2012 Animal Law Conference at Lewis & Clark, and helped draft one of Oregon’s most extensive animal cruelty bills—now state law—which sets tougher penalties and sentencing guidelines for animal abuse. Before law school, Lora was an associate managing editor for Carnegie Hall and editorial assistant for Oxford University Press. Though she is an East Coast native, Lora now calls Portland her home, where she enjoys a vegan lifestyle and lives with her husband and their rescued cat, Panther.