By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
While working as a prosecuting attorney in Ingham County, Allie Phillips volunteered at her local animal control—and noticed animal protection laws were not taken seriously, and there were virtually no animal cases in the prosecutor’s office.
“That’s when I started deeply researching how animal abuse links to almost every crime, but is deeply linked to domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse,” she says. “Little did I know that when I started down that path in 2000 it would become my legal specialty that would take me around the country and world to teach others.”
Now an attorney with three decades of experience, and a human-animal interaction legal educator and author, Phillips’s animal law specialty is prosecuting animal abuse.
“Animal law is important because violence to animals often results in violence to people. Violence is violence, whether committed against a two-legged or four-legged being,” she says. “Animal abuse is often the first signs of trouble. Taking animal abuse seriously can save people and additional animals from future harm. Animal harm unaddressed in communities results in unsafe communities. How we care for animals speaks to how we are as a society. Strong animal protection laws result in safer and stronger communities.”
A graduate of Michigan State University and cum laude alumna of Detroit Mercy Law, Phillips has written more than 50 legal publications, 10 book chapters, four federally-funded monographs, and two books “Defending The Defenseless: A Guide to Protecting and Advocating for Pets”; and “How Shelter Pets are Brokered for Experimentation: Understanding Pound Seizure.”
Specializing in the link between animal abuse and family violence, Phillips has conducted hundreds of trainings all across the U.S., and overseas, and has also had thousands of attendees in online trainings across the world.
“There are hundreds of studies that show us that when an offender harms an animal in an interpersonal relationship, it’s a control feature to secure compliance and silence from adult and child victim,” she says. “If I can kill the dog, I can kill you is the message it sends. We have research that even targeting farm animals and livestock is part of this cycle of violence.”
When Phillips first started studying “The Link” in 2000 and teaching prosecutors, law enforcement, and allied professionals in 2002, it was an emerging field very few were talking about.
“Up until a few years ago, I could count on one hand the number of prosecutors who were educated sufficiently on The Link to teach about it,” she says.
Phillips created Sheltering Animals & Families Together (SAF-T) as a solution to Link crimes—the concept coming to her around 1996-97 while prosecuting a domestic violence case. The victim wanted to drop the charges against her husband—who had already killed a dog— and go home to protect her two dogs and a goat.
When Phillips called a domestic violence shelter, the shelter worker laughed and hung up when she mentioned the client would arrive with two dogs and a goat.
In 2003, when she moved to the Washington, D.C. area to work for the National District Attorneys Association, she started to talk about the need for pet-inclusive domestic violence shelters for women and children.
In 2008, she published the first written guidelines for domestic violence shelters. In 2010, she named the program Sheltering Animals & Families Together and incorporated as a nonprofit in 2018. Currently, there are about 400 pet-inclusive domestic violence shelters in 49 states and six countries.
“While I don’t remember the name of the victim in that domestic violence case, she inspired me to launch the global movement of pet-inclusive domestic violence shelters,” she says. Colleagues call me the Godmother of the Pet-Inclusive Shelter Movement! Never could I have imagined back then that countless human and animal lives would be saved as a result.”
When she served as Vice President of Public Policy for the American Humane Association, Phillips worked extensively on child protection and animal protection federal and state legislation, with a lot of work on pet protective order legislation.
While at American Humane she collaborated with the Animal-Assisted Therapy Division to create Therapy Animals Supporting Kids (TASK) and wrote a Manual for criminal justice professionals that explains how to safely incorporate therapy animals with maltreated children.
Named a Top Defender of Animals in 2015 by the Animal Legal Defense Fund and honored with the Trail Blazer Award in 2018 from Urban Resource Institute (the largest domestic violence agency in the U.S.), Phillips also co-founded the National Center for Prosecution of Animal Abuse at the National District Attorneys Association. She also has participated in many volunteer groups.
Phillips shares her home with three senior felines.
“Since I have two home-based businesses, they are my Chief Feline Officers,” she says with a smile.
Legal News
While working as a prosecuting attorney in Ingham County, Allie Phillips volunteered at her local animal control—and noticed animal protection laws were not taken seriously, and there were virtually no animal cases in the prosecutor’s office.
“That’s when I started deeply researching how animal abuse links to almost every crime, but is deeply linked to domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse,” she says. “Little did I know that when I started down that path in 2000 it would become my legal specialty that would take me around the country and world to teach others.”
Now an attorney with three decades of experience, and a human-animal interaction legal educator and author, Phillips’s animal law specialty is prosecuting animal abuse.
“Animal law is important because violence to animals often results in violence to people. Violence is violence, whether committed against a two-legged or four-legged being,” she says. “Animal abuse is often the first signs of trouble. Taking animal abuse seriously can save people and additional animals from future harm. Animal harm unaddressed in communities results in unsafe communities. How we care for animals speaks to how we are as a society. Strong animal protection laws result in safer and stronger communities.”
A graduate of Michigan State University and cum laude alumna of Detroit Mercy Law, Phillips has written more than 50 legal publications, 10 book chapters, four federally-funded monographs, and two books “Defending The Defenseless: A Guide to Protecting and Advocating for Pets”; and “How Shelter Pets are Brokered for Experimentation: Understanding Pound Seizure.”
Specializing in the link between animal abuse and family violence, Phillips has conducted hundreds of trainings all across the U.S., and overseas, and has also had thousands of attendees in online trainings across the world.
“There are hundreds of studies that show us that when an offender harms an animal in an interpersonal relationship, it’s a control feature to secure compliance and silence from adult and child victim,” she says. “If I can kill the dog, I can kill you is the message it sends. We have research that even targeting farm animals and livestock is part of this cycle of violence.”
When Phillips first started studying “The Link” in 2000 and teaching prosecutors, law enforcement, and allied professionals in 2002, it was an emerging field very few were talking about.
“Up until a few years ago, I could count on one hand the number of prosecutors who were educated sufficiently on The Link to teach about it,” she says.
Phillips created Sheltering Animals & Families Together (SAF-T) as a solution to Link crimes—the concept coming to her around 1996-97 while prosecuting a domestic violence case. The victim wanted to drop the charges against her husband—who had already killed a dog— and go home to protect her two dogs and a goat.
When Phillips called a domestic violence shelter, the shelter worker laughed and hung up when she mentioned the client would arrive with two dogs and a goat.
In 2003, when she moved to the Washington, D.C. area to work for the National District Attorneys Association, she started to talk about the need for pet-inclusive domestic violence shelters for women and children.
In 2008, she published the first written guidelines for domestic violence shelters. In 2010, she named the program Sheltering Animals & Families Together and incorporated as a nonprofit in 2018. Currently, there are about 400 pet-inclusive domestic violence shelters in 49 states and six countries.
“While I don’t remember the name of the victim in that domestic violence case, she inspired me to launch the global movement of pet-inclusive domestic violence shelters,” she says. Colleagues call me the Godmother of the Pet-Inclusive Shelter Movement! Never could I have imagined back then that countless human and animal lives would be saved as a result.”
When she served as Vice President of Public Policy for the American Humane Association, Phillips worked extensively on child protection and animal protection federal and state legislation, with a lot of work on pet protective order legislation.
While at American Humane she collaborated with the Animal-Assisted Therapy Division to create Therapy Animals Supporting Kids (TASK) and wrote a Manual for criminal justice professionals that explains how to safely incorporate therapy animals with maltreated children.
Named a Top Defender of Animals in 2015 by the Animal Legal Defense Fund and honored with the Trail Blazer Award in 2018 from Urban Resource Institute (the largest domestic violence agency in the U.S.), Phillips also co-founded the National Center for Prosecution of Animal Abuse at the National District Attorneys Association. She also has participated in many volunteer groups.
Phillips shares her home with three senior felines.
“Since I have two home-based businesses, they are my Chief Feline Officers,” she says with a smile.
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