Pioneering Animal Advocacy: Pakistan's First Animal Law Attorney

John Reed [00:00:00] Animal law and its collection of rules, regulations, dos and don'ts is relatively new, regardless of where you may be in the world. But where you are in the world determines what animal law is— affected by geographic, economic, cultural, and even religious influences. It's a far broader topic than you might think, despite the fact that humans were animals before they became humans.

[00:00:29] The legal relationship between the two has clearly been rather one-sided, and breaking through longstanding norms and biases often requires a pioneer, a trailblazer. While there are many people who have been the first to do something, the first in their family, first in their school, first in their community, not many can say they're the first in their country.

[00:00:52] Today's guest on Sticky Lawyers is Hira Jaleel, Pakistan's first accredited animal law lawyer. As an advocate and policymaker, she has achieved little wins and large victories while also helping to create legislation to change the country's legal landscape nationally and in its four provinces.

[00:01:13] As a Fulbright Scholar and now an adjunct professor at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and as a law professor in Pakistan, Hira is nurturing the next generation of animal law scholars, practitioners, and legislators. She has many stories to tell, and I look forward to learning from her. Welcome to the podcast, Hira.

Hira Jaleel [00:01:33] Thank you. Thanks for having me here.

John Reed [00:01:34] It's great that you're a law professor because I'm going to have you give us an education today. Without reference to any particular jurisdiction, how would you describe the basic elements of animal law? There's different components and I'd appreciate you kind of enlightening me and us.

Hira Jaleel [00:01:53] Yeah, so animal law is actually anything that has to do with the law and animals. I know it sounds very self-explanatory, but that really is what it is. And you know, if you think about it intuitively, it sounds like it's a very niche field of law, but if you kind of really stop and consider it for a second, how many laws implicate animals and all the ways in which human beings and human society uses animals, you actually start thinking, “Oh wait, animal law has to do with pretty much every other field of law.”

[00:02:21] So from, say companion animals, right? Anti-cruelty laws, that's like a basic animal law issue, or basic animal laws that you might consider are cruelty laws, animal welfare laws, but then you also have wildlife protection laws, conservation, and management. In the United States alone, we farm more than 10 billion animals for food.

[00:02:42] And all the laws regulating animal disease management, animal health. Protecting those farmed animals, safeguarding their welfare, regulating food, food produced using animals, food sourced from animal product. Then you're talking about research and testing on animals. That's a whole other area of law.

[00:03:00] And here we're not even considering aquatic animals, animals who live in our seas and our oceans, and all of the laws, both national and international, that regulate their use. Fishing, aquaculture. So it's really a really, really broad area of law. And then when you're thinking about the intersection between animal law and other areas of law, you're also looking at constitutional law.

[00:03:24] For example, again, in the United States we have ag-gag laws where there are certain laws which prohibit activists from going into, for example, areas where factory farming is being done or K fours, and kind of documenting animal conditions and the ways in which those animals are being raised or slaughtered.

[00:03:41] Those implicate free speech issues, right? Then you have, what if there's a particular religious practice which entails slaughtering animals a certain way that also implicates first amendment issues? Yeah. Then we have administrative law. We have so many agencies. We have the Fish & Wildlife Service, we have the USDA and their agencies that are regulating animal use, in various contexts.

[00:04:03] And so there's a really big intersection between administrative law and animal law there. And of course, and I think there are very obvious synergies between environmental law and animal law because animals are part of our natural environment. Mm-hmm. And so, a lot of the laws that protect the environment more generally also affect animals and also form part of animal law.

[00:04:20] So it's really quite difficult to define what animal law is, but just that it's quite broad in everything that has to do that.

John Reed [00:04:27] Sure. You know, there's so many areas of law where, like animal law, it is a brand that encompasses the basic tenants of jurisprudence, right? There's property, there's contracts, there's criminal, there's tort there, all the different things that come into it.

[00:04:44] But I think for a lot of people, when one uses the term animal law, the knee-jerk reaction and the knee-jerk response is, “Oh, that's animal rights law.” But for the most part, that concept of animal welfare, animal health, essentially animal rights, that's relatively new out of all the things that you described. Is that a fair assessment?

Hira Jaleel [00:05:07] Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a fair assessment. And it's also interesting, this is a distinction that I didn't know before I actually got into animal law, but now of course I'm super well-versed with, and most animal law students are as well, at this point, which is that when we're talking about animal rights, you're also talking about a very niche area of law or of kind of scholarly pursuit of research within animal law.

[00:05:29] Because even within animal law, if we're talking purely theoretically now, on scholars and activists and lawyers and attorneys might just differ on the way or the most effective way to protect animal interests, right? So, it's definitely animal protection law but how you go about protecting animal interests is —a reasonable person could defer on that because, for example, you have people who prefer a more animal welfare approach, which basically maintains that well, humans should or can continue to use animals in the various ways in which we use them.

[00:06:01] But the law should regulate that use, right? So, in the farmed animal context, that means that we can continue raising and consuming and slaughtering animals for food, but we need to make sure that when we're raising them, we need to give them a certain, like their cage size needs to be of a certain dimension, or they need to be provided proper food and water and veterinary care and that sort of stuff.

[00:06:23] Whereas an animal rights or an advocate who's leaning towards the rights position might argue, well, no, we need to abolish all animal use. And we need to kind of make sure that the law recognizes animals as legal persons and gives them all of the rights that, or at least some of the relevant rights that human beings have under the constitution and law.

[00:06:40] Mm-hmm. And that's of course, a more difficult ask of a conservative institution like the law. So, I think that even the term animal rights lawyer is, I would say, more specific than just the term animal lawyer.

John Reed [00:06:53] Yeah. It would seem there's many, many niches within this niche of animal law. Of course, what attracted me to you, and to find you and have you as a guest on our program, is that you have the distinction of being the first lawyer from Pakistan to specialize in animal law.

[00:07:12] Although our listeners can't see you, you're young. I can attest you're young, certainly compared to me. Which begs the question, what was the state of law, the state of animal law in Pakistan before you started practicing, before you got your advanced accreditation and training in that area?

Hira Jaleel [00:07:30] Yeah, the state of animal law in Pakistan, unfortunately, is not great.

[00:07:34] And that's true for I think many countries around the world, not just Pakistan. But specifically talking about Pakistan, the major animal protection or anti-cruelty law in Pakistan, the main piece of legislation that exists in the country is from back when Pakistan was a British colony, so it's from 1890, and Pakistan gained independence in 1947.

[00:07:53] So even in terms of how far that law goes, how far back it goes, it's still a really, really old like ancient piece of legislation. It's very bare minimum. It only covers domestic and captured animals. And the law doesn't really define any of those terms, it doesn't define the term “animal.” And it has like these really bare bones protections, really basic protections for animals. And the law, because it's so outdated and the penalties under the law are so outdated, it has pretty much really never been updated since. Or Pakistan really hasn't legislated in the area since independence.

[00:08:29] Courts in Pakistan have actually done a lot with the law in interpreting it in really progressive and forward-looking ways. But the legislation itself is, as far as enforcing the law against people who abuse animals or who are engaging in animal cruelty, it's really bad. I think the one thing that Pakistan needs the most at this point is to legislate on this issue and really just need to protect animals because I think it's safe to say that in its entire history, Pakistan hasn't really done that in so far as animal protection laws are concerned.

[00:08:58] And the only exception to this, the only caveat I would make is for wildlife laws because Pakistan does legislate a lot in that area. And each province in Pakistan, Pakistan has four provinces. Mm-hmm. So, each province has legislated in the area of wildlife protection. And fairly recently, in fact just this month, there was a new federal wildlife protection law as well that was passed.

[00:09:19] So that's an area of law that keeps getting updated fairly regularly, but insofar as other animals are concerned, not so much.

John Reed [00:09:26] And I hear we have some animal guests, so that's great. Yeah, no worries. We have, we can handle as many guests as we want here on the podcast. I want to come back to that, but I think it would help for us to lay a little bit of foundation about you and your legal career.

[00:09:41] So you currently teach at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, which is a long way from Lahore. So, walk me through your path to the law and how you landed in Oregon. And perhaps you can start with your decision to become a lawyer in the first place.

Hira Jaleel [00:09:56] Yeah, so I went to law school, quite honestly, not super invested in the law, and I think the, so there's a distinction for American listeners.

[00:10:05] I think it's important to understand this distinction is that in the US, you do your four years of your bachelor's and then you go to law school. So, your law school really is kind of an advanced degree, right? You've already done four years of undergraduate schooling. In Pakistan, it's a little bit different because your basic degree in law, which is your LLD, is your undergraduate, so you're still fairly young.

[00:10:24] When I graduated from my undergraduate, I was what, 24 years old, right, when I got my degree in law. So, when I went to college, I was kind of, and the only reason I was really even interested in the law was because I just didn't want to do anything that had to do with math, which is I think true for lots of lawyers.

[00:10:41] And I was like, wait, what's something I can study that would be an easier lift than something math-related? I landed on the law, which again is super counterintuitive and maybe not the brightest decision. But I went into it, and I was in my last year of law school and I was still a bit on the fence about whether I want to really practice law after I graduate.

[00:11:02] And I remember it was like my moot court class and the professor walks in and he's just like kind of talking about how he's not going to be able to take classes for the next week because he's attending an animal law conference in the U.S. Mm-hmm. And I think that kind of, I don't know, it was just like, you know, that eureka moment when like a light bulb just goes off. And, coincidentally it was around the same time growing up I didn't have, like, my family didn't have a lot of companion animals.

[00:11:27] At least not dogs. And it was around, like it was in my last year of law school that I had adopted my dog, Peanut. And, you know, it was my first experience really living or sharing space with an animal. And I was so invested in her and her personality. And everything she did was just so delightful to me.

[00:11:48] Mm-hmm. And I think that kind of really made me sit up and take notice of what other animals around me or in society generally were kind of going through. And yeah. I think when my professor kind of mentioned animal law, that kind of was like, wait, I'm super interested in animals and I already studied the law.

[00:12:06] I'm about to graduate, so maybe this is something that I can kind of look into. So, after I graduated, it's not something I acted upon immediately. Not in terms of like starting an animal law practice, but however, the professor, I did specifically join his law firm, partially because he was doing animal law in Pakistan.

[00:12:22] Mm-hmm. Like he was doing a couple of cases that were animal-related. And so I was like, well, this is the closest thing I get to animal law in Pakistan. So that's where I want to be. And I practiced in that firm for a couple of years, and during this time I applied for the Fulbright Scholarship to study animal law.

[00:12:38] And Lewis & Clark back then was the only institution in the world that offered a specific degree, an advanced degree in animal law. Okay. So, I think it was kind of a no-brainer from that perspective to do my LLM from Lewis & Clark. And so, I got the Fulbright. That's how I ended up at Lewis & Clark for my LLM. I did my LLM.

[00:12:57] After that, I went back to Pakistan. I continued practicing at that firm, but with a heavier focus on animal law because now I had the degree and now I had the expertise. So I started taking on kind of more of my own cases. And they, they were really supportive. I think that's one thing that I want to give them a lot of credit for, for supporting my animal law practice in Pakistan. Because, of course, you need that institutional structure and support in order to be able to really practice a field like this, which isn't necessarily, like, you're not going to get high-paying clients for animal law cases, right?

John Reed [00:13:28] Yeah.

Hira Jaleel [00:13:28] So, yeah. And the rest is, as they say, history. I practiced animal law in Pakistan for a couple more years, and then this position at Lewis & Clark opened up for a teaching fellowship. I applied for it, just kind of like, let's see what happens.

[00:13:42] And then I got selected for it. And I mean, of course, it was my dream to, or I was really enjoying practicing animal law, but animal law at that point in my life was still maybe 20% of my work, right? My 80% was still hardcore corporate, commercial law, civil litigation, everything else except for tax and criminal work was what I was doing.

[00:14:04] Arbitration, all that sorts of work. So, I was like, well, this is a job that will let me focus on animal law full-time. And it's teaching and scholarship, which is, you know, just something I really enjoy and I'm doing. I also taught animal law in Pakistan. So first I applied, I got the position, and now I'm here back in Portland.

John Reed [00:14:23] Okay. Let's back up a little bit and talk about your practice in Pakistan. It would seem that because you are a first, the first to specialize in the area, that you would have anything in anything. We call that a threshold practice. Anything and anything that walks over the threshold in that area, you might take.

[00:14:43] So that's transactional, it's disputes, it's litigation that goes along with that. Regulatory and even helping to create the laws. Is that kind of a depiction of what your practice entailed?

Hira Jaleel [00:14:55] Absolutely. I think that my practice was, you're absolutely right, it was a threshold practice. I took any and everything that had to do with animal law, which included something from as small as sending legal notices on behalf of shelters, who adopted out dogs and cats to people who had been either abandoned the animals or just refused to honor the contract that they had with the animal shelter to return the animal if they can't for some reason care for the dog or cat anymore.

[00:15:23] So kind of taking action against or enforcing those contracts. Something as basic as that. All the way to like legislative drafting. So, I worked with the federal government in Pakistan to draft, and the World Organization for Animal Health's legislative mission to Pakistan, to draft the new federal animal health bill.

[00:15:40] Which is this really extensive piece of legislation focused on animal disease management, surveillance, prevention, control, and trying to bring Pakistan's law more in line with what the World Organization for Animal Health standards are for animal health and welfare. I also work with all four provincial governments in Pakistan.

[00:15:58] So similar to the U.S., how there's some things that the federation can legislate on and there's some things that the states legislate on, and then there's some things that both can concurrently legislate on, right? So, in Pakistan, animal welfare is one of those, and wildlife protection are two of those topics that are mainly provincial domain, and so each province has its own law, or it's ideally supposed to have its own law. And so, I work with all four provincial governments independently to draft their animal welfare acts. And all of those laws are kind of in the various stages of being passed right now. Some of them are with the law department, some of them have been tabled, some are farther along than others.

[00:16:35] And litigation of course, was a really big piece of it. So, I did a lot of litigation both as counsel, but also was appointed amicus curiae by the Lahore High Court, which is the equivalent of the State Supreme Court. Mm-hmm. In the province I was practicing in a couple of animal law cases. And besides that, regulatory work as well.

[00:16:54] So something I was doing right before I actually took this position was working with various departments and agencies in Punjab, which was the province I was practicing in, to regulate or figure out who should even be regulating live animal markets. Because live animal markets is just one of those issues where there's huge potential for animal welfare violations. But also, it's a public health and safety issue because, you know, you have like so many animals and these really cramped, confined spaces, they're spreading diseases to each other. There's also this potential to spread zoonotic diseases, diseases that are transmissible from animals to human beings. And so those areas really need to be regulated.

[00:17:34] And unfortunately in Pakistan, no agency really wants to step in and take ownership. And so that was something I was kind of working with these different governmental departments, trying to figure out legally who's responsible to regulate these markets and how to best go about doing that.

[00:17:50] I'm very grateful that I had so much exposure to such different kinds of practice—animal law related.

John Reed [00:17:56] It would seem to me, maybe I'm getting the events in the wrong order, but your specialization seems to have been a lightning rod to attract all of this work as opposed to you got the work and oh, by the way, you have the specialization.

[00:18:11] So being the first actually helped you grow your practice as opposed to you having to really go out and in a hardscrabble way, pioneer that for clients and provinces and the country itself.

Hira Jaleel [00:18:23] No, absolutely. I think it's just that because there's just so much room and there's just so much that can be done in this space.

[00:18:31] And I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that Pakistan's animal movement as a whole, the advocacy movement, not the law movement, just the advocacy movement is very active now and has only become active fairly recently. So. like in the last, I would say, five or six years or so, or maybe the last decade is really being generous. and so now there's lots of big NGOs and there still are really big NGOs. So, we don't have like PETA or a Humane Society in Pakistan, but we have like local organizations who are now, you know, fairly big enough in size to have enough influence and can actually, are paying attention to the tools that they can use to protect animals.

[00:19:06] One of which of course is law and litigation and lawyers, right? And so, I think my degree, maybe if I'd done this degree five years earlier than I had, I might actually not have been able to do much with it. But I think it's just one of those situations where the stars kind of aligned and the time was right.

[00:19:23] I got the degree at the right time, and there were people actively looking for lawyers to kind of take interest in this work and to be able to commit more time to it and to kind of commit a bigger chunk of their practice to animal law work. So again, I'm super grateful. I think luck had a lot to do with it as well.

John Reed [00:19:39] Sure. You mentioned obviously colonial history, colonial influences, and you know, us Americans, we're really good at keeping our myopic provincial view. So, educate me, if you will, on, I guess, cultural influences, animals in society in Pakistan, and how that—I guess everything, as you say, from companion animals to wildlife tourism, but certainly, you know, food, agriculture, et cetera.

[00:20:10] You touched a lot on that at the beginning, but I wonder if you can give us kind of some specific examples.

Hira Jaleel[00:20:15] Yeah, absolutely. I think this is so important, especially in the field of animal law, to really be cognizant of what context you're working in. And I think the legal issues that you work on can vastly differ depending on the culture of the place you're in.

[00:20:32] And by way of example, I was going to cite two examples. One is dogs, right? And I think this is something that is very relevant because in Western society generally, you know, dogs are considered a part of the family. They're beloved companion animals. If the law protects no one else, you can be fairly sure that it'll protect dogs, right?

[00:20:53] To some extent, I would still not say like it goes really far, but the law still caters to dogs, I guess, in those, in that hierarchy of animals. In Pakistan it's actually, that's not the case at all because Pakistan's a Muslim-majority country. So, the state religion is Islam, so it's also an Islamic Republic.

[00:21:10] And apart from that culture, culturally, 97% of the population is culturally and religiously Muslim. So, there's this conception, and I don't necessarily agree with the conception, but there, it's a pretty widespread conception that dogs are considered unclean in Islam, and so people just don't like keeping dogs as pets in the house.

[00:21:32] And again, there's that distinction, right? Just even if that was true, that shouldn't transmit to cruelty against dogs. But unfortunately, we see that that ends up being the case where a lot of dogs are homeless. Tthey're on the streets. We have a lot of street dogs, stray dogs, a big stray dog population in Pakistan.

[00:21:49] And those dogs are treated quite horrendously to be honest, both by the state and by people generally. And by the state specifically, because people complain. And of course, like there's some legitimate reasons to be wary because of course, you know, when you have so many dogs in the street, there's going to be incidents, there's going to be dog bites. Dogs can be carriers, carriers of rabies.

[00:22:12] So those are very real concerns. But how the state has historically handled it has been to shoot or poison those dogs, which are really barbaric ways of stilling them. And it's usually done very surreptitiously in the middle of the night when there are fewer people around or fewer people to protest. Mm-hmm.

[00:22:28] And so that was something that I actively litigated and try to get the law changed on that front. And another, I think, major cultural issue in Pakistan, there's not a lot of transparency around how farm animals are being raised and slaughtered. And there's like this default presumption that because the country's an Islamic republic, everything's halal and everything's great.

[00:22:49] Right. Even though halal slaughter or halal, or the way animals are supposed to be raised and slaughtered under Islamic law, actually, there's quite a few welfare considerations that have to be accounted for. And I don't think that's being done in Pakistan because there's this presumption that just because it's halal, it's all okay.

[00:23:08] And of course, everyone's going to be following the right way of conducting the slaughter. Mm-hmm. Which isn't necessarily true. So, there's like that information gap and there's opacity around what's really happening behind the scenes to farm animals that I think is something that some light needs to be shed on.

John Reed [00:23:24] And I think one thing I've learned about is export of animals. Big cats in particular, but also other exotic animals. What is the state of Pakistan's law relative to import and export of animals, too?

Hira Jaleel [00:23:40] This is something that I've been doing researching on and working on for the past, I think two years now, and I recently published an article on the regulation of exotic big cat ownership in Pakistan.

[00:23:50] There's an increasing trend in the country of keeping exotic big cats as pets. And again, there are animal welfare concerns with that. There are public safety concerns with that. And I mean, they are lions, right? They're lions, and you are keeping them in essentially in your backyard. So, a lot of times I have friends who've been like walking their dogs and then they're like, oh, you know, we saw like a cat, a big cat, like a lion peering out of like this window in this completely residential area.

[00:24:17] And if you look at news reports, people are walking their lions on like leashes, like dogs. They're driving around in the car with like lions in the backseat. And for those animals, of course, you're definitely not providing them what the habitat they need. Mm-hmm. The enrichment they need, the food and water and veterinary care they need, right?

[00:24:36] But even besides that, oftentimes people will treat them quite horribly. They'll, you know, have them perpetually sedated or will have those animals declawed or have their teeth pulled out, or just do like really horrific things to kind of try and tame those big cats. And so, it's a serious concern. The law unfortunately is a bit confusing about it, is confused, quite honestly about how to regulate this practice because Pakistan is of course, party to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora CITES.

[00:25:10] And so, under Pakistan issues CITES permits for animals to be imported in the country. But once the animals are in the country, which is something the federal government does, and the federation does. Like I said before, wildlife protection is provincial domain. So once the animal is in the country, the provinces take over and there's this huge loophole that people are exploiting because what ends up happening is that they will import a big cat or a pair of big cats, and then they'll establish these local wildlife breeding farms and continue to breed and sell those animals because oftentimes, the provincial law won't even cater to exotic animals.

[00:25:43] Okay. Because what the provinces are concerned about is protecting wildlife within their provincial territory, right? So, the wildlife law will only usually cater to indigenous wild animals and won't even talk about exotic wild animals. And so, there's this loophole now where, fine, this animal was imported into the country under the law, but now the law is silent on what to do with this animal.

[00:26:04] And so we can do whatever we want essentially. Hmm. And this is complicated by the fact that of course the people can also sell lion cubs and tiger cubs online, and that's a whole other, of course, like online regulation. Or cyber crime, or like cyber safety laws are completely different, right?

[00:26:20] Like electronic, if anything, it would be an electronic wildlife crime. And there'd have to be a very specific law to do an electronic wildlife crime. And who's going to legislate on that issue? Is the federal government going to do it? Is the provincial government going to do it? And because of all of these constitutional nuances and intricacies, most big cats kind of slip through the cracks, and people exploit them and abuse them and sell them, purchase and breed them.

[00:26:43] And just like, however, how much they want to.

John Reed [00:26:47] Here I have to ask. From what started as a happy accident, a professor that indicated he was going to a conference, to the obvious breadth and depth of your knowledge, not only of animal law on Pakistan but worldwide. What's next for you? I can't imagine Pakistan wants to let you go and just teach here in the United States.

[00:27:11] What are your plans for returning to practice in Pakistan? I also want to talk about the Center for Animal Studies, but let's start with this now.

Hira Jaleel [00:27:18] I definitely want to stay involved with practice in Pakistan and there are ways in which I've been trying to do this. One of the ways is of course I can still be a petitioner even if I can't go and litigate cases myself.

[00:27:30] I can still be petitioner in cases and hire lawyers to do cases for me. So, on the live animal markets issue that I was talking about, I filed a petition in which we basically challenged the way live animal markets are regulated in Pakistan because,  that's again, an area that has public safety and animal welfare, huge public safety and animal welfare implications.

[00:27:52] That's certainly not been paid much attention to. And besides that, I'm not doing this right now, but something I'm really, really interested in doing and want to figure out how to do it is to keep teaching in Pakistan, because I taught the first animal law course in the country at my law school.

[00:28:06] Mm-hmm. And there was, there was a lot of student interest, so more than I was expecting. And of course, the students were lovely and bright and so invested in this issue. I don't think the country should have to rely just on one animal lawyer or two animal lawyers, right? There should be a whole network of lawyers.

[00:28:22] Just maybe if they're not doing animal law as like a full-time job, at least dedicating some space or time in their practice to animal law cases. So that's something I'm really invested in kind of establishing and building. And I think a great way to do it is through teaching. So, I want to try and figure out a way to teach in Pakistan or to continue teaching in Pakistan, whether I do it remotely or I go back and do it, and to kind of try and set up this network of animal lawyers in the country or lawyers willing to take up animal law cases in the country.

[00:28:51] So those are kind of my medium-term plans to continue the field in Pakistan.

John Reed [00:28:56] Very good. At Lewis & Clark, you're part of the Center for Animal Law Studies. What's your role there and what's the, I guess the Center's focus? I'm going to have some more specific questions, but I'll have you kind of give me the general overview first.

Hira Jaleel [00:29:08] Yeah. The Center for Animal Law Studies is actually the first center of its kind in the world. The center has a lot, has lots of firsts to its name. The first LLM in animal law degree was started at Lewis & Clark. The first MSL in animal law degree was offered. An MSL is a legal degree for non-lawyers, was offered by CALS. We're also now starting an SJD in animal law, which will again be the first of its kind. And the SJD is equivalent to a PhD in law for any non-lawyers out there.

John Reed [00:29:39] I didn't know that. That's good to know. I didn't know that.

Hira Jaleel [00:29:42] Yeah, and my role is I'm a teaching fellow and I'm also an adjunct professor, so I'm teaching food law and aquatic animal law at Lewis & Clark. And I'm also supporting, or basically the entire program. Because Lewis & Clark also has an online LLM and MSL program along with the in-person. So, the in-person program's been around for a very long time now. But during COVID, CALS launched the online LLM and MSL programs where those lawyers and non-lawyers interested in studying animal law, but you know, who have full-time jobs and really can't take out a whole year from work or other family commitments to come to Oregon and study animal laws. It offers a great opportunity for them to do this degree completely online in an asynchronous format, and my main role is kind of supporting that part of the program.

John Reed [00:30:28] So going back to your earlier description, students in this program, they're probably studying in all those different areas.

[00:30:37] There are some that are studying it for agricultural purposes, some for food purposes, obviously some for animal rights. So, you have all these people coming together. Potentially at odds with each other at some point in their careers, but for now, they're all at least studying together. Is it that widespread? Is it that encompassing?

Hira Jaleel [00:30:57] Oh, absolutely. We have students. It's also a very—one thing I forgot to mention is that it's a very internationally focused program. Of course, I mean, I graduated from there, and I was from Pakistan. But we have, I believe, and if anyone from CALS is hearing this, and I'm misrepresenting, I'm sorry, but I believe right now we have students and alumni from over 28 countries across the world.

[00:31:19] So it's a pretty international program and so like I was mentioning before, when you're coming from all these different parts of the world, there are obviously going to be different issues you're interested in, depending on your cultural context. So, for example, we have a lot of African students who might be interested in wildlife issues because of course that's a big, that's really important for them.

[00:31:38] Then we have lots of U.S. students who are interested in everything from companion animal, shelter law to foreign animal protection and agricultural law like you were talking about in food law, food regulation, aquatic animal law. Something I'm teaching is another kind of up-and-coming here because you have this entire huge category of animals that the law isn't catering to or really isn't catered to it enough or have very unique legal issues surrounding their protections.

[00:32:04] So of course there are all these students who are interested in everything. And the best part about CALS is that we offer just so many courses. So, we have a companion animal law course, we have an industrial animal agricultural course, we have a global wild animal law course, and an international animal law course.

[00:32:19] And then of course there's the courses I'm teaching: Food law, aquatic animal law. We have a farm animal protection project for students who are interested in setting up nonprofits that are catering to farm animal protection. So because CALS offers this huge depth and breadth and variety of courses, I think there's genuinely something for everyone who is interested in any aspect of animal law.

John Reed [00:32:40] But no math.

Hira Jaleel [00:32:40] No, no math.

John Reed [00:32:42] Good.

[00:32:43] I was going to say, I would consider applying as, and I'm with you though, as long as there's no math. From your time practicing in Pakistan, what are some of your greatest hits? And let me couch that and say the things that, of which you're most proud.

[00:32:55] I know that because you're a first, a lot of it was milestone opportunities or milestone impact. But to you, what are a few of the most proud accomplishments you've had in the practice?

Hira Jaleel [00:33:07] That's a really good question. I think I'll just talk about two. One, and this is really, really ostensibly, it's really tiny because I think the effort it took and the reward just were mismatched.

[00:33:23] But one of my clients was a shelter like I was talking about earlier. He was a shelter who approached me because they had adopted out a dog. His name is Bear. And he was a really happy, healthy, just a complete sweetheart. They adopted him out to someone who was unable to care because people in Pakistan also, just again, because a lot of people just haven't had dogs growing up.

[00:33:45] And it's not just something that they're used to. And I think it's all true. That's honestly true for anywhere in the world. There are people who are going to love their animals and going to keep them happy and safe and healthy. And there are people who are just not going to be very invested in caring for the animals.

[00:33:57] Mm-hmm. So unfortunately, these people were some of the latter folks. They were unable to kind of care for Bear, and started returning him to the shelter, which is something that the shelter was happy to kind of take him back. And their adoption agreement expressly stated that if they were unable to care for the dog, they would return the dog to the shelter.

[00:34:15] They just let him go somewhere. So, they just like kind of let him out at the side of the road and, you know, just let him go. And the shelter, of course, I mean, all of these animals are like their babies. They care so much about, yeah, because a lot of dogs that the shelter rescues in Pakistan are also gunshot or poisoning victims from state authorities attempts to cull them.

[00:34:34] And so, the shelter invests a lot of resources trying to rehabilitate these animals and getting them to like a physical and emotional state where they can be adopted out. So, of course, they were like, we want him back, and these guys have a responsibility to return the dog to us. And so, I sent them a legal notice, which was essentially to the tune of you know, if you're not going to go out and find the dog and return the dog, we are going to sue you. We're going to initiate litigation against you. And, I was not expecting, honestly, for them because I mean, again, a legal notice, I think anywhere in the world is fairly standard practice and it's very, very rare for something to actually come out of it for anyone.

[00:35:10] And this wasn't something they could even settle, right? Like, we weren't even looking for money. We were literally looking for them to return the dog. And luckily enough, it was successful. And I remember I was just working late in the office and then like my boss walks in and he's like, “Wait, I have something for you.Like, we just got, someone just dropped a letter off for you.” And the letter was essentially them responding to my legal notice saying that we went out, we searched for the dog, we found him, and we are returning him to the shelter. And here's a picture, like here's a picture of him. He is alive, here's proof of life.

[00:35:47] And do not sue us. And I was just completely taken aback and so happy. And then my client calls me and they're obviously over the moon because the dog was obviously like, he was thankfully safe and sound and okay, physically okay. But of course, he was completely emaciated. It didn't seem like they'd been feeding him.

[00:36:06] He was all skin and bones, but they were just happy to have gotten him back. Yeah. And honestly, I think that was, to date, the highlight of my career. Sure. Because, just because the outcome was so relatively immediate and so rewarding. Mm-hmm.

[00:36:19] And the other success is also linked to the dogs issue. So basically, what ended up happening, I think it was in 2021, someone approached me because they had been feeding these three dogs and these had collars and vaccinated —again, really friendly dogs, and it was like a mother dog and her puppies.

[00:36:38] And they were just used to living outside this person's office and just like this person used to feed them and were community dogs in a sense. But someone complained about them and then the next day they had been shot. Hmm. And this person was really upset and was like, I want to challenge this practice.

[00:36:52] Like under what legal authority are these state authorities, these municipal corporations coming and shooting our dogs? And so we went to the high court, we filed a petition against the practice saying that these state authorities are acting outside of what the law allows them to do. They have no legal mandate to kill sweet dogs.

[00:37:12] We kind of pushed for the government to formulate a policy to implement trap, neuter, vaccinate, release programs. And again, luckily enough, we were successful and the government did formulate a trap, neuter, vaccinate, release policy. It was called the Animal Birth Control Policy for the Province of Punjab.

[00:37:32] And the court kind of supervised this entire process and the policy was notified in March 2022, and it basically said that the province of Punjab, as a matter of policy is not going to be killing street dogs or shooting them or poisoning them anymore and will only euthanize—you mainly euthanize dogs if they're captured and they're very, very sick or they're, you know, really hurt to the point where it would be better for the dog to be euthanized as opposed to being kept alive. But in all other situations are going to capture and neuter and vaccinate, and then release the dog back to the area where it came from. So I, that was another, I think with litigation, especially in Pakistan, litigation takes years and years to resolve. Sure. I think when there's a litigation success, it seems especially sweet just because there's a lot of effort that goes into it and you usually have to wait very long. But for this case, thankfully, we didn't have to wait as long for there to be success.

John Reed [00:38:27] Well, those are heartwarming stories and you're right. I could see where to some the legal victories may not seem like a legal victory, but to the individual and certainly to Bear yeah. That's a big deal. So, in any event, yeah.

[00:38:44] This has been wonderful. Thank you for doing what I asked you to do, and that would be educating me.

[00:38:49] And on behalf of Peanut and Bear and so many other animals, I thank you for being a first in your field. We will put all sorts of links up, on the website so people can find out more about you and keep up with you. And I just appreciate your time today. Thanks for joining us.

Hira Jaleel [00:39:06] Thank you so much for having me. This was really lovely. I enjoyed chatting with you. Thank you.

John Reed [00:39:11] Hey, is this your first time listening to Sticky Lawyers? If so, I really hope you enjoyed the conversation and I also hope you'll subscribe and listen to more episodes. And if you really liked it, maybe you could leave a review and give us a rating.

[00:39:26] The more positive, the better. You can do that on our website or wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, I'm John Reed and you've been listening to Sticky Lawyers.