Animal Law at the American Bar Association

On October 9, 2004, Gislason brought Animal Law to the American Bar Association (ABA). By unanimous vote, the Council for the ABA's prestigious Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) made Animal Law a Committee and Gislason its first Chair. This is the only Animal Law Committee in the ABA and its scope is broad, ranging from equine, family, endangered species, and criminal law, to contracts, torts, insurance law, and more recently, biotechnology and emergency management.

The mission statement for the committee, which Gislason authored, is: "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."

Gislason recruited extraordinary leaders from around the world to fulfill the committee's ambitious goals. Those who joined the committee as early leaders included Tax Lawyer Kristina Hancock of San Diego, California, Agricultural Lawyer Patrick Costello of Jackson, Minnesota, Equine Lawyer Julie Fershtman of Farmington Hills, Michigan, Animal and Environmental Law Professor David Favre of Michigan State Law School, Detroit, Michigan, White Collar Crime Prosecutor Jill Mariani of New York, New York, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Animal Law program at George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. Joan Schaffner, Tribal Judge Benjamin Zvenia of Las Vegas, Nevada, Raj Panjwani of the Animal and Environment Legal Defense Fund of Delhi, India, Patent Attorney Warren Woessner of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Plaintiff Attorney Adam Karp of Bellingham, Washington, Professor Song Wei of the University of Science and Technology of Beijing, China, and Professor Paul Waldau of Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.

While Gislason served as Chair for two years, the committee received two of the coveted TIPS Innovation awards. Gislason chaired and spoke at the committee's first Continuing Legal Education (CLE) program at the ABA Annual Meeting called "It's a Dog's Life: What Does Tort and Insurance Law Have to Say About It?" She served for two years as the Editor-in-Chief of the Animal Law Committee Newsletter, which she also created, and she published articles in ABA TIPS' The Brief, Tort Source and Tort Trial & Insurance Law Journal.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast in the fall of 2005, Gislason expanded her ABA efforts. She created and directed the ABA-TIPS Animal Disaster Relief Network, which included participants from more than 70 non-profits, law schools, and businesses. In this capacity, she wrote regularly published reports, including the first comprehensive overview in the country of state laws pertaining to animals and veterinarians in the homeland security, emergency management, and Good Samaritan context. She created and convened the ABA-TIPS Select Legal Panel on Emergency Management Regarding Animals, which fast-tracked model language on hold periods, or the amount of time animals must be kept before title transfers.

Others serving on this Committee included Epidemiologist Stephanie Ostrowski of the Center for Disease Control, Veterinarian and Lawyer Sarah Babcock of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Veterinarian Kevin Dennison, Emergency Program Manager of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) APHIS Animal Care, Melissa Rubin, Vice President, Field and Emergency Services of the Humane Society of the United States, Professor David Favre of Michigan State University Law School, and Ledy VanKavage, of Best Friends Animal Society.

Gislason also worked closely with Committee Vice Chairs Kristina Hancock of California and Assistant Attorney General Jim Carr of Colorado, who also is an ABA House of Delegates Representative who led the ABA effort with regard to the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section’s sponsorship of the Federal Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act (PETS Act). This led to the entire ABA supporting the congressional passage of the PETS Act.

Gislason was appointed the ABA-TIPS Advisor to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) regarding the Uniform Emergency Volunteer Health Practitioners Act (UEVHPA). There, she was influential in having veterinarians included in the Act and drafted model language concerning them. She also facilitated NCCUSL receiving subject matter expertise from the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section and the Public Health Section, and in particular, brought in Tony Lorusso of St. Paul, Minnesota, to help with Workers’ Compensation challenges and he became the section’s alternate advisor.