Public Policy Achievements

Trailblazer and Thought Leader

Barbara J. Gislason has long been an innovator in the development of American jurisprudence. In part, her public policy objectives are reflected by the professional groups she founded. They include:

• Minnesota State Bar Association’s Art and Entertainment Law Section
• Minnesota State Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee
• Minnesota State Bar Association’s Animal Law Section
• American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section Animal Law Committee
• American Bar Association’s Animal Disaster Relief Network
• American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section Select Legal Panel on Emergency Management
• American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Law Section Insurance and Risk Management Committee

Although her innovative efforts may seem divided, there has been a common public policy theme through all her volunteer efforts. Barbara cares about the equitable maxim: when there is a wrong, there should be a remedy. This includes helping new and emerging artists and entertainers get a fair deal in negotiations with large entities and making sure that animals get a fair deal, to the extent possible, in a human-based legal system.

Of all her public policy work, she is the most proud of the mission statement she wrote when bringing animal law to the American Bar Association in 2004. Her mission statement was as follows:

“To evolve our thinking on animal issues for both the United States and the world by attracting the best and brightest lawyers in this country, with a wide variety of perspectives, we will look at animal-related problems and issues today, and think about new ways to define, manage and solve them. Utilizing problem-solving strategies, we will also look at the law as it exists today – fragmented around the country – and envision what it could be. The TIPS ABA Animal Law Committee will be the instrument of a paradigm shift, and will bring to the table and address legitimate business and economic interests, and humane concerns.”