Who we are
I’m Penny Ellison, the founder of the Animal Advocacy Academy. I am an attorney, an adjunct professor of Animal Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and a leader of nonprofit organizations that seek to improve conditions for animals and people. I created the Animal Advocacy Academy with the single goal of providing well researched and accurate content that distills hard-to-understand concepts into clearly communicated, actionable podcasts, classes, articles and videos for anyone who is eager to learn about making the world a little easier and more compassionate for animals.
I know you get a lot of emails from animal welfare organizations. When most advocacy oganizations ask you to get involved, they mean by donating money. And donating is great and important and you should do it if you can. But I know, when I open those emails, I’m always looking for more concrete ways to help. That’s what the Animal Advocacy Academy is all about.
Animal Advocacy Academy is based on a few of my core beliefs…
I want to teach you about animal law and advocacy so you can make your own judgments and set your own priorities based on an understanding of the facts and the processes to effect change. Armed with that knowledge, animal advocacy becomes fun and do-able, not out of reach and pointless. My goal is to share everything I know about animal advocacy and to foster critical thinking, thought provoking conversations and real world change.
Animal Advocacy is not just for lawyers
Lawyers have a role but so does everyone else who cares and it’s not that hard to learn about what needs to change and how to change it.
Thinking small is often better than thinking big
You might want to relieve the suffering of every animal – but that can feel impossible because it is. Changing things in your community can create a groundswell that ripples in ways you never imagined.
Together, we can shift the paradigm
Many people say that the actions of just one person can’t make a difference. They can and they do – when we join in community and take action.
PENNY ELLISON
Penny Ellison is an animal protection attorney, writer, and community leader who brings nearly two decades of animal law and policy experience to the Animal Advocacy Academy. Since 2006, she has taught Animal Law and Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
She also serves as faculty supervisor of Penn’s Animal Law Project, a student group that provides pro bono legal assistance to nonprofits serving the interests of animals.
The Animal Law Project has provided advice and counsel to many national and international animal protection organizations including the Humane Society of the United States, Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Center for Biological Diversity as well as local shelters and advocacy groups. Penny has been honored by Penn’s Toll Public Interest Center as Supervisor of the Year for the Animal Law Project.
Penny was a Contributing Writer for The Legal Intelligencer contributing a quarterly column on Animal Law and Ethics from 2013 to 2022. In 2015, she was appointed by the Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture to serve on the Pennsylvania Dog Law Advisory Board to advise on enforcement of laws affecting care of dogs and dog breeding in the Commonwealth.
In addition, from 2012 through 2023, Penny served as Executive Director and Board Chair of Hand2Paw, a Philadelphia nonprofit that provides work and life skills training to vulnerable youth through work with animals. She is also co-Chair of the Board of the Pennsylvania SPCA. Through these roles and her community-focused work, she aims to inspire innovative and practical policy solutions for animals. In 2023, Penny was honored to be a recipient of the 2023 WHYY Good Souls Project Award.
Penny is the author of over 40 published articles on animal and environmental law and policy and has been an instructor, guest lecturer, and speaker at numerous conferences. She received her law degree, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
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