Cooperative Living May 2024 - 38

PAWPRINTS
This dog was rescued as part of
a dogfighting case in Richmond
which the attorney general's
office prosecuted. The defendant
received a two-year sentence.
A Law With Some Teeth
Virginia attorney general's office has an animal law unit
by Mark D. Robertson, Cardinal News
I
nside the office of the Virginia
attorney general in downtown
Richmond resides something not
found anywhere else in the United
States: a team dedicated to working
on animal law.
Virginia's Animal Law Unit is a team
of attorneys and investigators who focus
on animal abuse and neglect, trafficking,
and training in animal law issues for law
enforcement and other state attorneys.
" I like to say that my role as attorney
general is that I oſten say we're the
people's protector, " Virginia Attorney
General Jason Miyares says, adding
that in many cases animals in Virginia
are very much considered part of " the
people. "
The Animal Law Unit's genesis
came in 2015 during Mark Herring's
first term as attorney general. Herring,
now a partner at the Washington, D.C.,
law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &
Feld, remembered the office's animal
36 * Cooperative Living * May 2024
asset, and without having to ask the
legislature for any more resources,
funding, we could give the lawyers who
did that kind of work [a platform], "
Herring says.
Attorney General
Jason Miyares
Former Attorney
General Mark Herring
law prosecution as one of its strengths
when he assumed the role in 2014.
The idea came to him to set some of
those attorneys on the beat full-time.
He designated Michelle Welch, now
a senior assistant attorney general and
still the director of the ALU, at its head.
Welch had already made a name for
herself in the world of animal law, and
her leadership made the unit's creation
a no-brainer for Herring.
" I thought the abilities and talent
of those lawyers were an underused
co-opliving.com
In the years since, working under
both Herring, a Democrat, and
Miyares, a Republican, Welch and
the ALU have closed more than 3,000
cases, including some of the highestprofile
cases the attorney general's
office has handled in the past year.
" How a society treats its animals
says something about who we are as
people, " Herring says. " And so the
Animal Law Unit says something
about who we are as Virginians. "
*
PHOTOS COURTESY VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE
http://www.co-opliving.com

Cooperative Living May 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living May 2024

Cooperative Living May 2024 - Statewide cover Final
Cooperative Living May 2024 - 2
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