By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
While working as a prosecuting attorney in Ingham County, Allie Phillips volunteered at her local animal control — and noticed Michigan animal protection laws were not taken seriously by the shelter, and that 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 said.
“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 said her animal law specialty is prosecuting animal abuse.
“Animal law is important because violence to animals often results in violence to people,” she said. “Violence is violence, whether committed against a two-legged or four-legged being.
“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.”
Because animals are sentient beings just like humans, Phillips said they are entitled to the protections that people have.
“Animal law is a wide field that goes beyond animal abuse and neglect laws,” she said. “When we can protect all animals, including wildlife, that enriches our world.”
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 available on Amazon: “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., as well as in Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal, and Scotland, 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 said. “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 said. “In May, I was teaching on this topic at the Conference on Crimes Against Women in Dallas and there were people in the audience who had never heard the information I was sharing.”
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 one dog — and go home to protect her two dogs and a goat.
When Phillips called the local domestic violence shelter from the judge's chambers to see if she could get her client into shelter, the shelter worker laughed and hung up when she mentioned the client would arrive with two dogs and a goat.
“When I get mad, I find solutions. In that moment, it was like the entire concept for the SAF-T Program downloaded into my brain,” Phillips said. “I didn't know what to do about it because I was a fairly new prosecutor.”
It wasn’t until 2003 when she moved to the Washington, D.C. area to work for the National District Attorneys Association that 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.
“The testimonials I receive back from the shelters is usually ‘Why did we wait so long to do this!’” she said. “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. 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.
She said she collaborated with the Animal-Assisted Therapy Division and the team created Therapy Animals Supporting Kids (TASK).
The collaboration also resulted in a manual for criminal justice professionals that explains how to safely incorporate therapy animals with maltreated children.
“There is confusion in the different working animal titles and we wanted to provide clarity,” Phillips said. “For example, service animals are not to work therapeutically because they are trained to work solely with their handler to perform a service. Whereas therapy animals are trained to work with a handler to provide therapeutic support to others.”
When the TASK Program and her pet-inclusive domestic violence shelter program grew in popularity, and Phillips was frequently called out on trainings, she then became vice president of Human-Animal Strategic Initiatives.
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 where educational information is available.
Phillips also is the owner of the Manifested Harmony, created initially to help shelter pets and abused/neglected animals.
Phillips grew up with a cat and several rabbits.
“I was also the little girl who would find stray animals — sometimes wildlife — and want to bring them home,” she said. “I understand animals. I'm a bit of an animal whisperer. And I especially understand cats. I've always known that they feel pain like we do, and they have emotions like we do.”
Legal News
While working as a prosecuting attorney in Ingham County, Allie Phillips volunteered at her local animal control — and noticed Michigan animal protection laws were not taken seriously by the shelter, and that 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 said.
“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 said her animal law specialty is prosecuting animal abuse.
“Animal law is important because violence to animals often results in violence to people,” she said. “Violence is violence, whether committed against a two-legged or four-legged being.
“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.”
Because animals are sentient beings just like humans, Phillips said they are entitled to the protections that people have.
“Animal law is a wide field that goes beyond animal abuse and neglect laws,” she said. “When we can protect all animals, including wildlife, that enriches our world.”
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 available on Amazon: “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., as well as in Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal, and Scotland, 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 said. “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 said. “In May, I was teaching on this topic at the Conference on Crimes Against Women in Dallas and there were people in the audience who had never heard the information I was sharing.”
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 one dog — and go home to protect her two dogs and a goat.
When Phillips called the local domestic violence shelter from the judge's chambers to see if she could get her client into shelter, the shelter worker laughed and hung up when she mentioned the client would arrive with two dogs and a goat.
“When I get mad, I find solutions. In that moment, it was like the entire concept for the SAF-T Program downloaded into my brain,” Phillips said. “I didn't know what to do about it because I was a fairly new prosecutor.”
It wasn’t until 2003 when she moved to the Washington, D.C. area to work for the National District Attorneys Association that 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.
“The testimonials I receive back from the shelters is usually ‘Why did we wait so long to do this!’” she said. “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. 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.
She said she collaborated with the Animal-Assisted Therapy Division and the team created Therapy Animals Supporting Kids (TASK).
The collaboration also resulted in a manual for criminal justice professionals that explains how to safely incorporate therapy animals with maltreated children.
“There is confusion in the different working animal titles and we wanted to provide clarity,” Phillips said. “For example, service animals are not to work therapeutically because they are trained to work solely with their handler to perform a service. Whereas therapy animals are trained to work with a handler to provide therapeutic support to others.”
When the TASK Program and her pet-inclusive domestic violence shelter program grew in popularity, and Phillips was frequently called out on trainings, she then became vice president of Human-Animal Strategic Initiatives.
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 where educational information is available.
Phillips also is the owner of the Manifested Harmony, created initially to help shelter pets and abused/neglected animals.
Phillips grew up with a cat and several rabbits.
“I was also the little girl who would find stray animals — sometimes wildlife — and want to bring them home,” she said. “I understand animals. I'm a bit of an animal whisperer. And I especially understand cats. I've always known that they feel pain like we do, and they have emotions like we do.”
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