Our Commitment to You

Richard Bruce Rosenthal’s History

Richard Rosenthal is a pioneer in animal law and is headquartered in Huntington, NY. Rosenthal created the Cody Trust and works to advance it. He has taken on many of the most difficult and complex animal law cases of our time. His successes have resulted in changing laws, stopping dogs from being euthanized, placing pets with beautiful families, and winning pet custody battles. Success has garnered him a lot of enemies-from government officials to other lawyers. A person threatened to kill him and he was insulted after antagonizing city officials who had been complicit in killing pets. He has been interviewed and chronicled by national newspapers and television news programs.

Whether representing a client in a dangerous dog proceeding or a contractual dispute over a pet adoption, he continuously challenge the existing laws, as well as the beliefs and assumptions of judges and lawyers. His goal is to look at the development of new laws and doctrines so that pets can have their status within property law or that they belong in a classification somewhere between property law and child custody disputes, given their unique place in the American family. He believes that animals have civil rights and are entitled to due process and continue to fight to advance their standing before the Courts.

The Case That Started it All

In October 2009, Lexus, a high prey drive greyhound, was declared a vicious dog and put on death row. She sat in a Rhode Island kill shelter waiting to be put down. Her crime? Left unleashed in a dog park she followed her instincts and killed a Pomeranian puppy. (Small, long-haired dogs are perceived by many greyhounds as prey; this is the instinctive response of a sighthound.) The greyhound was seized and her owner attended a hearing without counsel and the judgment paved the way for her execution.

Luckily for Lexus, Robin Mittasch read her story on the internet forum Greytalk and was moved, together with her husband, Rich (who is an attorney) to fight for her release. Thanks to a quirk in the Rhode Island statute he was able (with the assistance of an attorney in Rhode Island who also volunteered his time to file the Court papers) to negotiate the release of Lexus from her cell and her removal from the state. As she jumped into his van, snuggled up, and ate cookies, the idea of the Lexus project was born.

After 30 years of practice, he found his calling and rediscovered his passion for animal law when confronted with the imminent execution of a Greyhound named Lexus for doing what she had been bred for thousands of years to do. After saving her life, he started receiving calls from greyhound rescue groups all over the country asking for his advice and assistance on similar matters. Recognizing the need for this type of resource The Lexus Project was created.

Although all the legal defense by the attorneys is pro bono, there are always court fees, marshall fees, research fees, deposition, transcript, filing fees, overnight mailings, etc. and if we have to get a dog released from the pound at a per day rate charge, there are those fees too. All proceeds go to The Lexus Project, a legal defense for greyhounds and all breeds of dogs. We are a 501c3 organization, so your donation is tax-deductible.

In 2011 after stepping in to save a Siberian husky facing death in Tolland, Ct. for killing chickens that drew some intense media coverage he realized that no dog was safe unless all were and redefined our mission to include defense for all breeds of dogs unjustly imprisoned or facing execution. Civil Rights for Dogs – Defining a new paradigm.

After creating a new basis for asserting standing based upon the Pet Trust Statutes he has successfully litigated (and often changed laws and practices) in 29 States in over 100 cases. From there he started fighting (utilizing 42 USC 1983) to overturn breed-specific legislation in Wisconsin and rein in a humane society that was violating people’s civil rights and seizing and killing their pets without any due process in Ohio and challenging Connecticut’s procedures of seizing dogs and holding them for up to a year without affording the owners a hearing.

Clients have called him “straightforward” “knowledgeable” and “the reason my dog is home with my family.”

The Future Battle

The world of animal law is changing rapidly as is the way the law views companion animals. Dogs today can be protected by orders of protection, they can be the beneficiaries of trusts, be represented by counsel and more and more Courts are beginning to acknowledge the right to emotional damages for harming them.

Unfortunately, dogs occasionally cause injuries to people and other animals, the penalty for which is often death (even when the law says they are innocent). Guest Lecturer in Animal Law Marino Legal CLE October 2013 – September 2014 (1 year)NYC Volunteer Experience & Causes General Counsel The Lexus Project October 2009Animal Welfare The Lexus Project is a New York Not For Profit Corporation existing to help any dog who is facing death or incarceration as a vicious/dangerous dog. To defend all breeds of dogs wrongly accused of being vicious/dangerous, giving a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.

America is currently experiencing an epidemic in this country. Animal shootings by police officers nationwide have law-enforcement agencies running for cover amid growing public outrage that could force state legislatures to require greater accountability from men and women in uniform.

No government agency keeps a national database on the number of pets killed by police. But animal- abuse activists have kept statistics, and they say a pet is killed by law enforcement every 98 minutes in America. They say it is largely a result of officers having little-to-no training on how to deal with dogs and no plan to deal with them in place other than to shoot them.

Until recently, he had avoided getting involved in the cases of dogs shot by law enforcement officers, believing that they were better addressed by the negligence plaintiff’s bar and he was inundated with cases trying to save live dogs. However, the number and frequency of these shootings have increased so drastically that he could no longer sit idly on the sidelines bemoaning the tragedy of the situation. If we did not move aggressively to stop these shootings they would only grow worse.

As he looked for attorneys to litigate these cases he discovered that, because in most States, because dogs are chattel, you could only recover the cost of replacing the dog with another similar dog, there were few plaintiff’s attorneys willing to take these cases. When one ceased viewing these cases as injury to property cases and started dealing with them as civil rights violations, then they are can any real progress be made.

Unfortunately, there are just as few plaintiff’s civil rights attorneys willing to take dog shot by police cases as there are negligence attorneys available, and the few attorneys with real experience litigating these cases, though willing to assist and advise, were inundated and unable to handle the numerous cases. Even worse, many cases were being brought in State Courts under the wrong theories and either being dismissed or settling for minimal amounts, thus perpetuating the idea that these cases were unprofitable and not worth taking. What was required was a new approach and developing a robust animal-friendly bar and educating them to deal with the ever-increasing number of cases.

Player and Coach

He believes that it is important to freely give his time advising, helping, and guiding other attorneys who ask for help. He gives lectures across the country and teaches animal law skills.