Animals Need Lawyers Too: Vanessa Shakib on Animal Rights, Pet Custody & Hidden Abuse
2026-07-10 · 38 min · episode 66 · 8 entities
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Episode description as stored
Vanessa Shakib spent 8 years as a lawyer before walking away to start her own nonprofit law firm — suing the federal government on behalf of animals who legally can't speak for themselves. In this episode, Vanessa breaks down the "foreign animal lab loophole" that lets the government funnel $20 billion in taxpayer money to animal testing overseas with zero oversight, the most viral case in animal law history (a government-ordered 500-mile mission to seize and kill a little girl's pet goat), and why animal law might be the most overlooked legal field in the country — with fewer than 200 full-time lawyers doing this work nationwide.
We get into how animal law touches everything from pet custody in divorce to factory farming loopholes, why "who owns this cow" turned into a full legal specialty, and what regular pet owners get wrong about where their animals actually come from.
Follow Vanessa: @vanessashakib
Her nonprofit: Advancing Law for Animals
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