معرفی
Assistant Clinical Professor Delcianna Winders serves as Director of the Animal Law Litigation Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School's Center for Animal Law Studies (CALS), the world's leading institution in animal law education. She brings extensive litigation experience from her decade-long career at the PETA Foundation and clerkship with Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Education: JD from NYU School of Law, where she earned the Vanderbilt Medal and served as Senior Notes Editor of the NYU Law Review.
- Research & Teaching: Focuses on animal law, farmed animal welfare, and legal advocacy, emphasizing the intersection of animal rights with human health, environmental protection, and worker safety.
- Clinic Leadership: Designed the first U.S. law school clinic dedicated exclusively to animal law litigation, aiming to challenge legal exemptions for farmed animals and develop the next generation of animal law attorneys.
- Advocacy Impact: Instrumental in ending Ringling Bros. circus elephant exploitation through multi-pronged legal campaigns, including historic fines under the Animal Welfare Act and jurisdictional bans on traveling elephant acts.
- Public Engagement: Contributed animal law scholarship to top-50 law reviews and opinion pieces to major media outlets including The New York Times, Newsweek, and National Geographic.
CALS's Animal Law Litigation Clinic focuses on advancing farmed animal rights through strategic lawsuits that address systemic legal exclusions, while training students in practical litigation skills and ethical advocacy frameworks. Winders' work bridges legal theory with real-world applications, emphasizing network-building and professional responsibility.
- Awards & Recognition:
- Vanderbilt Medal recipient for animal law contributions at NYU
- Robert McKay Scholar distinction
- First Animal Law and Policy Fellow at Harvard
- O Magazine's 'Six Women Who Dare' feature
Her career spans academic leadership at multiple law schools (Pace, Loyola New Orleans, Tulane, and Vermont), sanctuary animal rescue operations through litigation, and development of international animal law standards via CALS's LLM program. The clinic builds on her legacy of creating legal frameworks that recognize animals as sentient beings rather than property.
