Lawyers Turn Career Into Pet Project
Animal law has become growing focus among attorneys

By MARY FLOOD | Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 4, 2008, 11:49PM

Zandra Anderson saw her legal career going to the dogs and decided to make it formal.

As tort reform legislation stalled her work in medical malpractice and personal injury, Anderson said, she decided to focus more on legal issues surrounding the pets she loves.

Now she has a Web site, www.texasdoglawyer.com, which attracts business from across the state. A lot of it is done for free, though.

"I've even been paid in kibble," the lawyer said.

She does other non-pet-related legal work, too, serves on the Hilshire Village Council and runs an advice column Web site.

Anderson is among a new breed of lawyers in Texas, practicing as much animal law as they can.

She does work for rescue groups, has been on both sides of leash laws, defends owners in disputes over whether their animals are rightfully declared dangerous and has been in on many other pet-related disputes — sometimes for cats, too.

In 2006 she started conducting seminars around Texas on laws about pets. Her seminars have attracted lawyers, veterinarians, city officials and others. She also has self-published a guide to Texas pet laws.

Looking for Something Else
The owner of two mutts, named Zeus and Zena, who sit at her feet while she's on the computer in her home office, said she has had money and, though it's better than not having it, she's looking for something else from the law and life now.

"I'm looking for things that have a greater meaning than money. I'm also looking for peace of mind and doing things that feel good, feel right," she said.

After graduating from South Texas College of Law, Anderson did a little in-house corporate work and then worked at the firm of plaintiffs' attorney John O'Quinn for a decade before striking out on her own.

Rather than worry about a doctor's negligence or a truck that caused an accident, she now is focused on laws that criminalize injuries caused by dogs and can turn their owners into felons.

Litigation involving cats and dogs can get very tense, she added.

"If there is trouble with a dog, there can be a lot of raw emotion," Anderson said. "People are passionate about their animals. They are family; sometimes the pets are the nicest ones in the family."

Another Houston lawyer who does all the animal law she can is Amy Bures Danna, who said those issues fascinate her.

The Web site of her firm, The Clary Firm, includes a pull-down menu for animal law, showing a picture of her with two German shepherds and listing trusts, contracts and charitable groups.

"Animal law is fascinating because it's different in every state and it is constantly changing in every state," she said.

An Expanding Field
Bures Danna, who teaches animal law as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center and is active in animal law legal groups, said some lawyers in California and Washington state have managed to do this work full time, largely by representing animal welfare groups.

She does a lot of civil litigation to pay the bills. Bures Danna figures animal law takes up about one-third of her time and, because so much is done free of charge, it constitutes only about 15 percent of her billing.

Fran Ortiz, a professor at South Texas College of Law who will teach her third animal law class in 2009, said more than 100 law schools teach animal law. She sees it as a growing field, coming up the way environmental law did years ago.

Legal issues involving animals seem to be taking center stage more often, she said, citing such examples as the California ballot proposal about humane treatment of livestock; the dogfighting case that sent former NFL quarterback Michael Vick to prison; hotelier Leona Helmsley's will leaving millions in a trust for her dog, Trouble; animal welfare in research; puppy mills; cloning; or just local ordinances.

"Animal law just comes up in all areas of the law," Ortiz said.

"In probate it might be a pet trust, in divorce it might be a custody issue, in landlord-tenant it might be a change of ownership. It can be whistle-blower about conditions at a meat plant. You can pull animal law into your practice in all kinds of ways."

mary.flood@chron.com