A lifelong animal "person," she, like many others, found a new way of addressing the suffering of animals when she read Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation," first published in 1975.

While at USD, Tischler wrote a law review article titled: "Rights For Nonhuman Animals: A Guardianship Model for Dogs and Cats," which was published in the San Diego Law Review in 1977.

After earning her law degree, Tischler moved to San Francisco, where she and fellow attorney Laurence Kessenick co-founded the Animal Legal Defense Fund (originally called Attorneys for Animal Rights) in 1979.

In 1981, Tischler left private practice to become the first ALDF (AFAR) employee. As ALDF's then-chief litigator, she filed groundbreaking lawsuits such as a National Environmental Policy Act challenge to the U.S. Navy's plan to shoot thousands of feral burros who wandered onto its weapons testing center, an effort to invalidate patents on genetically altered animals under federal U.S. patent law, an attempt to enjoin an annual elk hunt and a lawsuit to gain declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of three humane societies against a university and veterans hospital, based on cruel treatment of a dog in a research protocol.

Tischler has served as the Executive Director of ALDF since 1981, helping to guide the organization from its inception to the present. At present, ALDF has 18 employees, with offices in California, Oregon and Nebraska (U.S.) and three major areas of focus: its Anti-Cruelty Division assists prosecutors of cruelty cases in order to gain stronger enforcement of state anti-cruelty laws; its Animal Law Division works to bring animal law educational opportunities to an increasing number of law schools and state and local bar associations; and its Litigation Program focuses on high impact lawsuits that directly benefit animals.

Tischler, as the CEO, is responsible for oversight of all programs and finances, as well as the day-to-day administration of the organization.

Over the years, when I have asked this question of others, I've noticed that some people are born into it and others have that "ah ha!" moment when they are exposed to an act of cruelty or read a book, such as John Robbins' "Diet for a New America." I belong to the former group. As far back as I can remember, I had a special feeling for animals. As a child, I often brought home injured birds to care for, or cats who I thought were lost (hopefully, I didn't inadvertently steal my neighbors' cats!). While going to college, I helped to run an on-campus cat shelter. We spayed, neutered, obtained veterinary care for and placed about 100 cats annually. In law school, I had the opportunity to write for law review. I had recently read Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation," and was quite moved by it. The law review article I wrote was about animals' legal rights and suggested that we could remove animals from the property status, elevating them to the level of human incompetents who require guardianships.

In 1979, I was introduced to fellow San Francisco attorney Laurence Kessenick. We shared a common interest in protecting animals and wondered what lawyers could bring to the table for the nascent animal rights movement. We put an ad in the local legal newspaper, inviting attorneys interested in animal rights to attend a meeting. About 6 people showed up for the first meeting. We began by meeting once per month, assigning one attorney or law student to research a topic and make a presentation and in that way, we taught ourselves about a wide variety of issues, such as the use of animals in research, factory farming, hunting, trapping, etc., and the federal ( U.S. ) and California laws that related to animals. We tried to keep quiet about the group, because we knew that once word got out to animal activists that a group of lawyers existed, people would come to us for legal representation. It would be difficult and impractical to respond effectively, as we all had full time jobs and had no infrastructure: no office, no support staff. Of course, eventually all of that did happen and we had to respond. In 1981, I left the law firm that I was with and we had our first full-time employee. I worked out of my apartment on a manual typewriter and Larry's secretary typed most of our pleadings in the early lawsuits. We took on a number of lawsuits and with each one, we learned more about the legal issues, as well as what would work and what didn't.

So, the short answer to your question is: no; we did not set out to start a movement, or even a nonprofit organization. Our vision was quite narrow: animals were suffering and we wanted to utilize our legal skills to help them. Developing a long term vision for what animal law could become, learning about how to run a nonprofit agency, build a board of directors, draft annual budgets and business plans, engage in strategic planning, provide networking opportunities for lawyers and law students: all of that has developed over a 25 year period.

Both are critically important. Moreover, I think they work together, hand in hand. For example, in the U.S. where I practice, there is a dearth of laws to protect farmed animals, so, as lawyers, our hands are tied; we need to pass good laws before we can enforce them.

Highlights:
In 26 years, there have been many, but for me, the golden moments are when we win a lawsuit and we can breathe deeply for a moment, knowing that we have done what we set out to do: help animals.

In my first lawsuit for ALDF, on a Friday morning, I was able to convince a judge to issue a temporary restraining order, which stopped the U.S. Navy from shooting 500 or so feral burros over that coming weekend. That was a wonderful feeling. When we won the first USDA case at the trial level and U.S. District Court Judge Charles Richey agreed with us that the USDA regulations (to offer increased protections to animal used in research) were inadequate; that was another high. A few months ago, we tried using a little known North Carolina law that enables citizens to sue civilly when a person is treating animals cruelly. We were able to get an injunction against a hoarder who kept hundreds of dogs in horrible conditions, causing long term misery. The judge gave us custody of over 300 dogs and I can't tell you how good it feels to be bringing those dogs back to health. You can check our web site for more information about these and other cases. Conversely, nothing has felt worse than losing a case in which animals' lives and well-being are on the line.

When I was a kid, a popular television show was the Ed Sullivan Show. And, one of the regular acts on that show was a man who would balance plates on dowels. As the music played, he would run back and forth on the stage, trying to keep the plates from crashing to the ground. I often feel like the guy with the plates, because my job is to "keep all of the plates" in the air. We spend a fair amount of time planning what our focus is, as an organization and within each department.

On a daily basis, I am in contact with my management team, assuring the we are staying on focus, planning for the long and short term, assuring that we have the financial wherewithal to carry out our programs, as well as meeting the current day-to-day deadlines that each of us has. I occasionally speak publicly or guest lecture at one of the law classes; I try to keep that at a minimum, as it takes time away from my management role.

The development of animal law is one of our three major areas of focus and it is progressing very well. It had grown slowly until fairly recently and a major breakthrough came with the publication of the first animal law casebook; we owe a debt to Sonia Waisman, Bruce Wagman and Pamela Frasch for having the vision and intestinal fortitude to undertake that project. A second casebook has now been written by Professor David Favre. Another major contribution was Animal Law Journal, published by the students of Lewis & Clark, Northwestern Law School. Two new animal legal journals have now emerged.

Our Animal Law Program staff is working to introduce more courses, educate the legal community about animal law and the variety of publications and materials now available. In addition to the introduction of animal law classes, we are also working to encourage the formation of state and local bar association animal law sections and law student chapters. In essence, we want to bring animal law into the mainstream of the legal community and we believe that this will provide a boost for our ability to protect animals, both legislatively and in the courts.

ALDF's Animal Law Program is devoted to developing the field of animal law by providing education, networking and other resources to law professionals, promoting animal law related activities at law schools, working with and networking organizations such as state and local bar associations and developing a volunteer membership base to assist ALDF with its law projects.

Litigation: we are developing innovative legal theories and filing lawsuits at the ( U.S. ) state level: our lawsuits focus on causes of action that directly benefit animals. We're using ALDF as a combination think tank and research and development entity. If a legal theory is successful, we can pass it along to the lawyers in private practice who are working for the animals.

Zero Tolerance for Cruelty: The goal of this program is to assure that U.S. (state) anti-cruelty laws are fully and effectively enforced. We assist prosecutors directly, by doing legal research, writing memos, obtaining expert witnesses and providing information and advice. We've also developed a model anti-cruelty law and work with local activists who are sponsoring legislation that improves state anti-cruelty laws.

Both. We were able to establish standing to protect animals in laboratories. But, the protections that the U.S. Congress intended to afford to animals used in research have not been implemented. The U.S. research industry ought to be ashamed of its record on the care and treatment of the animals used. It has spent huge amounts of money to combat all efforts to make life more tolerable for the animals in those labs.

In the U.S, there is no federal anti-cruelty law, anti-cruelty statutes are passed and enforced at the state level. State anti-cruelty laws vary widely; some have improved noticeably in the last decade, others need major overhauls. Our goal in developing a model anti-cruelty law has been to set out, in one document, all of the provisions that we'd like to see in a state anti-cruelty law. While the model law provides a good "one size fits all" approach to a good statute, most states are not going to completely amend their existing law, so we develop individualized approaches for each targeted state.

To my mind, one of the most important provisions is one that allows the law enforcement officers to quickly remove the animal(s) from the premises where the cruelty is occurring and adopt them out to homes where they will be properly cared for. Criminal prosecutions for cruelty can take months, sometimes years, and it is frustrating to see as many cases as we do, where the animals are left in the possession of the person accused of abusing them (or returned to that person after conviction for cruelty). Many of the current state anti-cruelty laws have no provisions to deal with this; thus, we are working to educate the public about this problem and introduce pre-conviction seizure/forfeiture provisions.

Also, through our campaign, we have learned that definitions within existing anti-cruelty laws, particularly as they relate to standards of care for animals are often inadequate. "Standards of care" is the term that we use to describe minimum care specified in the statute, which is often too vague. For example, what constitutes "adequate shelter?" When we are working in a jurisdiction, we will recommend ways to improve such provisions within the existing anti-cruelty law.

Don't beat yourself up because you can't save every animal and you can't say yes to every activist who comes to you for help. Plan carefully. Decide on your focus. Continually ask yourself: which animals need my help the most? Where can I be the most effective? When choosing targets for changes, I always keep in mind David Favre's analogy to the riverѦind those places where the river is narrow and the water is shallowѴhat's where we can make the most gains.