Barbara Gislason is a pioneer in the development of Animal Law as a practice area, both in Minnesota and nationally. In June 2003, she became the Founding Chair of the Animal Law Committee of the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA), and a year later, the Founding Chair of the MSBA Animal Law Section. This is also the second time in her legal career that she obtained section status for a new practice area, with her first success the Art and Entertainment Law Section in 1987. Minnesota was the sixth state in the country to achieve section status in Animal Law. Section status has the effect of both demonstrating acceptance and mainstreaming a practice area within the legal profession.

In January 2004, Gislason co-taught the first Animal Law course offered in Minnesota at Hamline University School of Law. Gislason then founded the Minnesota Common Law Project in Animal Law and worked in cooperation with the Minnesota Justice Foundation. During orientation week in August 2004, students from Hamline University School of Law, the University of Minnesota, and William Mitchell College of Law, under Gislason's guidance, qualitatively interviewed 38 judges and referees in six counties. The information was used to gain insight into the court's current knowledge and understanding of this practice area, to gather courtroom stories and experiences, and to consider how courts are bridging the gaps between codified law and case law in a rapidly changing field.

Gislason keynoted at the annual meeting for the Minnesota Foundation for Responsible Animal Care (MN FRAC), the largest Agricultural Consortium in Minnesota, participated on a panel with renowned Professor Bernard Rollin at the annual meeting of the Minnesota Veterinary Association, and spoke about Animal Law at the MSBA’s Rural & Farm Institute. She gave a lecture on "Animal Law and the Livestock Industry" at the University of Minnesota Department of Animal Science in 2004, and also the Edina Rotary Club. She chaired an Animal Law Continuing Legal Education program at the annual MSBA Convention, and gave a speech on the Endangered Species Act. Gislason has also been a guest on a variety of radio shows, including Discovery Channel, American Public Radio, and the Pat Miles show. She has been quoted by news outlets around the country, including Animal Planet.com, and FoxNews.com, as well as newspapers affiliated with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she was featured in a story.

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.

In 2006, Gislason spoke at the Humane Society of the United States on Animals in Disaster National Conference, the Virginia Animal Control Association Conference, the Michigan Animal Law Symposium co-sponsored by the State Bar of Michigan Animal Law Section and the Michigan Veterinary Medical Association, the Minnesota Animal Law Section Annual Conference, and the Lewis & Clark Animal Law Conference. In 2007, she spoke at a variety of venues including the Keoladeo National Park at an Anniversary of the “Crane Court” in Bharatpur, India, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) Harvard University Law School Animal Law Conference, and the American Veterinary Medical Law Association (AVMLA) Annual Meeting.

At the 2007 ABA Annual Meeting, she presented "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act: Designing a Poison Pill for a Social Movement" as part of the TIPS Freedom of Speech symposium, which was an ABA presidential selection. She was featured as the cover lead story in the DVM News Magazine, the premier veterinary publication in the country, on the subject of veterinary malpractice. In 2007, she made the first in-house presentation on Animal Law for Thomson Reuters, formerly known as West Publishing Company. In the presentation, she helped the lawyers and editors at the leading legal book publisher in the world understand the complexities and growth of Animal Law. Her presentation was re-broadcast to legal editors around the country.

More recently, she participated as a moderator in the Duke University School of Law program "Animals &  Bioengineering: A Consideration of Law, Ethics, and Science." Speakers at this two day program included Bill Reppy, Justice Michel Bastarache of the Supreme Court of Canada, Dr. Norka Ruiz Bravo of the Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health, Joyce Tischler of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Professor David Favre, who teaches Animal, Environmental and Property Law at Michigan State Law School, and Steven Wise, an Animal Rights lawyer who taught the first course at Harvard Law School.

Gislason serves on the U.S. Department of Justice Project Advisory Committee for the Regional Institute for Community Policing (RICP) Animal Rescue and Restore Project, and on the Animal Work Group for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Response Plan (NRP) revision. This committee is led by USDA’s Allan Hogue and USDHA’s Tom McGinn. Her contributions to Animal Law were acknowledged in the New York Times and she has been featured in the ABA Journal, Minnesota Law & Politics, Maddie's Fund Newsletter and the book Rescued: Saving Animals from Disaster. She has been a contributor to the Animal Wise Radio program and a guest on national radio shows in the U.S. and abroad, and Dr. Phil McGraw called her "the top animal advocate in the country" on the Dr. Phil Show.

In August 2008, she appeared in Producer/Director Kim Walsh's documentary "Left Behind Without a Choice." Currently, she visited South Africa as part of an American Bar Fellows People to People delegation, where she had an individual meeting with the Chief Executive Officer and lead veterinarian of Kruger National Park. She has continued with her many responsibilities described above and Jill Mariani and Gislason, after receiving sponsorship from the ABA-TIPS Enterprise Fund, will soon be doing a pilot radio program. Stay tuned for more information.  Please also review our Testimonials.

Local Awards and Recognition

• Minnesota Super Lawyer selected by Law & Politics
• MSBA Animal Law Section, special recognition
• MSBA Computer Law Section, special recognition
• MSBA for Service in the Assembly, recognition
• Animal Arc, as Chair of MSBA Animal Law Committee
• Michigan Bar Association, recognition
• Leading American Attorney selected by American Research Corporation
• Minnesota State Delegation to China
• Gislason wrote the Preface for a new ABA book called ABA-TIPS Guide to Litigating Animal Law Disputes, publication pending
   

National Awards and Recognition

• Client Counseling Competition, Law Student Division (Regional Winner)
• American Bar Foundation Fellow
• ABA-TIPS Innovation Awards for Animal Law Committee (Chaired Committee)
• American Bar Fellows People to People delegation to South Africa