Irus Braverman, Professor, SUNY Buffalo Law School (SJD 2007)
Professor Braverman wrote her S.J.D. thesis at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, which was published as Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2009). She has written extensively on zoos, including Zooland: The Institution of Captivity (Stanford University Press, 2013) and Zoo Veterinarians: Governing Case on a Diseased Planet (Routledge, 2021), as well as on wildlife issues as they relate to the environment, including Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink (University of California Press, 2018) and Wild Life: The Institution of Nature (Stanford University Press, 2015). Her edited collections include More-than-One-Health: Humans, Animals, and the Environment Post-COVID (Routledge, 2023). Her latest monograph is Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel (University of Minnesota Press, 2023).
Maneesha Deckha, Professor, University of Victoria Faculty of Law (JD 1998)
Professor Deckha is a graduate of the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1998. Her research interests include animal legal studies and critical animal studies, feminist animal care theory and feminist analysis of law, socio-legal studies in general, and reproductive and end-of-life ethics. Her book Animals as Legal Beings: Contesting Anthropocentric Legal Orders was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2021. Professor Deckha is also the Academic Director of the Animals & Society Research Initiative at the University of Victoria.
Jessica Eisen, Associate Professor, University of Alberta Faculty of Law (JD 2009)
Professor Eisen is a graduate of the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2009. She currently teaches at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law. Her research interests include animals and the law, constitutional and comparative constitutional law, equality and antidiscrimination law, feminist legal theory, intergenerational justice, and law and social movements.
Camille Labchuk, Executive Director, Animal Justice (JD 2012)
Camille is a graduate of the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2012. She is one of Canada’s leading animal rights lawyers, and has worked to protect animals for over 15 years. Camille represented Animal Justice before the Ontario Court of Appeal in Bogaerts v Ontario (AG) and the Supreme Court of Canada in R v DLW. In 2024, Animal Justice successfully challenged Ontario’s ag-gag law, finding it was unconstitutional.
Nadia Lambek, Assistant Professor, Western Law (SJD 2024)
Professor Lambek teaches at Western University’s Faculty of Law. She completed her S.J.D. at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2024 with her thesis “(Re)making the Rural” Law, Resistance and Agrarian Movements. Her research focuses on the law’s role in shaping our food systems, social movements in law making, and property law. She is actively engaged in developing the field of food law and policy in Canada and is a founding member and current co-chair of the Canadian Association for Food Law and Policy.
Marty is a graduate of the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2012. He is a lawyer and parliamentary advisor to two current senators. In his work with current and former Canadian Senators, Marty drafted and advanced Bill S-203: Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, and he worked to advance both Bill S-241: the Jane Goodall Act and Bill S-15 to end the captivity of elephants and great apes in Canada.
Peter Sankoff, Professor, University of Alberta Faculty of Law (JD 1996)
Professor Sankoff graduated from the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1996 and then worked as a law clerk to Madame Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé at the Supreme Court of Canada. He teaches evidence, criminal law, and animal law at the Faculty of Law University of Alberta. He represented Animal Justice in landmark cases, including R v Chen before the Alberta Court of Appeal and R v DLW before the Supreme Court of Canada. His publications in animal law include most recently Professor Sankoff’s Guide to Canadian Animal Law Protection(2024).
Andrew Stobo Sniderman, Harvard Law School SJD Candidate (JD 2014)
Andrew Stobo Sniderman is a writer, lawyer and Rhodes scholar from Montreal. He is the author of “‘Clearly a Subjective Determination’: Interpretations of ‘Undue Suffering’ at the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal (2000-2019)” 53:2 Ottawa Law Review (2022) and (with Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii)) the award-winning book Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation (HarperCollins, 2022). Currently, Andrew is an S.J.D. (doctoral) candidate at Harvard Law School. Andrew has published reporting and opinions in the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, Maclean's, the Toronto Star, the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen, and England's Sunday Times. His profile of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools won the award for best print feature of 2011 from the Canadian Association of Journalists. As a lawyer, Andrew has argued before the Supreme Court. His academic writing has been published in the Canadian Bar Review, the Ottawa Law Review, the International Journal of Refugee Law, the Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies and the Western Journal of Legal Studies. He has also served as the human rights policy advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and as a law clerk for a judge of South Africa's Constitutional Court.
Katie Sykes, Professor, Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Law (JD 2002)
Professor Sykes is a graduate of the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2002. She currently teaches at Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Law. Her main research area is animal law. Her latest book is Animal Welfare and International Trade Law: The Impact of the WTO Seal Case (Elgar, 2021), and she is also co-editor with Peter Sankoff and Vaughan Black of Canadian Perspectives on Animals and the Law (Irwin Law, 2015).
Scott Tinney, Knowledge Management Lawyer, Torys (JD 2018)
Scott is a graduate of the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2018. Prior to his current role at Torys, Scott worked at Animal Justice for three years where he was on the team that opposed ag-gag legislation across Canada, including a successful constitutional challenge in Ontario. Scott has appeared before many levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada.
M.H. (Man Ha) Tse, Postdoctoral Fellow in Animal Law (LLM 2015)
M.H. is the 2024-2026 Inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow in Animal Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She received her LL.M. from the Faculty in 2015 and her S.J.D. from Harvard Law School where she was affiliated with the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program. Her postdoctoral work builds on her S.J.D. dissertation Domestic Predation: A Legal Architecture of Human Systems of Extractive Violence (2024) and she is teaching an animal law seminar at U of T Law in the fall of 2025.
Recent Graduates
Michael Gold, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, Cambridge University (LLM 2022)
Michael graduated from the LL.M Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2022. He completed a thesis under the supervision of Professor Angela Fernandez entitled: The Ubiquitous Acceptance of an Exterminatory Legality: Rights, Framing, and Legal Opposition to Animal Farming. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Law, Cambridge University, where he is researching the application of constitutionalism and constitutional principles to the animal protection context, with a focus on animal farming.
Adam Iggers, Associate, Paliare Roland (JD 2023)
Adam is a recent graduate from the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2023, who is currently an Associate at the law firm Paliare Roland. He took the animal law class in 2022 and his Supervised Upper Year Research Paper (SUYRP) “Amplified Indigenous Ontologies: Towards a Tactical Resolution of the Tension Between Animal Rights and Indigenous Rights” was completed as a component of the JD Certificate in Aboriginal Law, winning the Justin Basinger Memorial Award (2023).
Nik Khakhar is Crown Counsel with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC)'s Regulatory and Economic Prosecutions Team. Among other areas of regulatory prosecutions, Nik prosecutes and provides pre-charge investigative advice to Environment and Climate Change Canada and Wildlife officers regarding offences under the Fisheries Act and the WAPPRIITA. A 2023 J.D. graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Nik wrote a Supervised Upper Year Research Paper under the supervision of Professor Fernandez exploring the challenging limits of sentencing proportionality in animal cruelty cases.
Daniel graduated from the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2025. He is currently articling at Aird & Berlis LLP. Daniel was a member of the Animal Law class in the Fall of 2023, winning the top prize in the course for his Supervised Upper Year Research Paper (SUYRP) “An Examination of British Columbia’s Amended Family Law Act, Canada’s First Statutory Framework for Resolving Animal Custody Disputes." The paper also won Third Place Prize in the Student Animal Law Research Paper Contest 2024-25 hosted by Animal Justice.
Andrew Luba, Film Producer and Environmental and Social Justice Lawyer (JD 2021)
Andrew graduated from the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2021 and was a member of the 2019 animal law class. He is the co-producer of an award-winning documentary Coextinction about the plight of the Southern Resident orca whale and Indigenous activism on the west coast fighting to protect their collapsing ecosystem. He articled at Ecojustice Canada, where he also worked as a summer law student.
Abhinav Mynampati, Research Analyst, Global Affairs of Canada (JD 2025)
Abhinav is a graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law JD Program. He previously worked with Global Affairs Canada on the Initiative Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations and also does freelance research work as part of Animal Environmental Legal Advocacy’s (AEL) student roster. He enrolled in the Animal Law course in the Fall Semester of his 3L Year. Abhinav spearheaded a submission to Environment and Climate Change Canada regarding the Draft Implementation Framework for the Right to a Healthy Environment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, requesting the inclusion of animals in the Right to a Healthy Environment.
Clara Pencer, Associate at Cassels, Brock & Blackwell LLP (JD 2023)
Clara graduated from the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2023. She practices in the business law group at Cassels, Brock & Blackwell LLP. She was previously a research assistant for Professor Angela Fernandez, where she conducted research into aquaculture regulations in Canada. With the support of the Brooks Animal Studies Academic Network (BASAN) she also worked as a research assistant with Ann Linder at the Harvard Law School’s Brooks McCormick Jr Animal Law & Policy Program on the following report: Animal Markets and Zoonotic Disease in the United States.
Ada Roberts, Associate at Landings LLP (JD 2022)
Ada graduated from the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2022. She was in the 2019 animal law class. She graduated in 2022 and currently works in the field of refugee and immigration law. After 1L she worked at Animal Justice as a Donner Fellow. She also attended the first Canadian Animal Law Conference at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she chaired and moderated a panel on “Issues in Food Labelling: Lawsuits, Discourse & Dietary Choices.”
Abigail Suissa, LPP Candidate, Toronto Metropolitan University (JD 2024)
Abby graduated from the JD program at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law in 2024. She took the Animal Law course with Professor Angela Fernandez and was a member of the Faculty’s Animal Justice group. She completed her Directed Research Project under Professor Fernandez entitled: “Rebalancing Animal Welfare Against Economic Interests in Family Law, Environmental Law, and Farming Regulations.” She also worked as a Research Assistant with Professor Fernandez on the Animal Law Digest: Canadian Edition, as well as other projects.