[Michele]

For a young, overworked lawyer practicing in a big Manhattan firm, it was a "transformative experience."

Eighteen years ago, James Gesualdi took a week off from his job to swim with pediatric cancer patients and dolphins. "The people taught me all about real-life stresses, as opposed to the artificial stresses that I was subjecting myself to in my practice," said Gesualdi of Kings Park, recalling the joy the dolphins brought the sick children.

"And the animals -- the dolphins just absolutely inspired me," he said.

That inspiration led Gesualdi to combine his two passions in life -- the law and animals. Today, Gesualdi is one of an increasing number of attorneys specializing in animal law, legal experts say.

Indeed, the boutique field of law has grown so rapidly that the Suffolk County Bar Association recently established an entire committee dedicated to animal law, with Gesualdi and Smithtown attorney Amy Chaitoff as its co-chairs.

"I believe our committee is a place where people -- whatever their perspective on animals issues -- can come together to work to make things better," said Gesualdi, who specializes in cases involving zoos and aquariums. "Better for animals, and better for society."

The committee plans to offer seminars for the public as well as continuing legal education courses for attorneys.

Whether they're criminal defense lawyers, prosecutors or estate attorneys, organizers said the common link between committee members is their passion for animals and their realization that while state law may recognize animals as no more than property -- like a car or a house -- they can mean much more to their owners.

"It's important for lawyers to be sensitive to the subjects, so they don't brush off clients with an animal problem," Chaitoff said. "You know: 'I'm getting kicked out of my house. I'm a 63-year-old woman and this dog is my only friend and companion.' And the lawyer might say, 'I don't know. It's a dog. Get rid of it,' instead of saying: 'Let me look into this and see what laws are available to protect you so that you keep your animal."

Laurette Richin, executive director of the Stony Brook-based Long Island Bulldog Rescue, said if it were not for a lawyer familiar with animal law, Duke, the English Bulldog accused of mauling a 4-year-old boy last year, could have been ordered to be put down by a judge. "I would have been nowhere," she said.

The creation of Suffolk's committee marks another small milestone in a relatively new area of law that gained much of its momentum in the last decade, experts said.

"As a young practitioner, you would have been laughed out of your firm if you said you wanted to go into the area of animal law," said Holly Kennedy Passantino, a Manhattan attorney and chair of the New York State Bar Association's Special Committee on Animals and the Law.

Joyce Tischler, founder and director of litigation for the California-based Animal Legal Defense Fund, said the animal law movement began in the 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist and civil rights movements. In its earliest days, attorneys concentrated on stopping perceived government abuses of animals.

Today, there are 22 state and local bar association animal committees, Tischler said. And the number of schools teaching animal law has grown from about a dozen in 2000 to 90 today, including Hofstra, Columbia and New York University, Tischler said.

"The image used to be the old lady in the tennis shoes who was feeding the cats down the block," Tischler said of her fellow animal law practitioners. "It's grown to be a very professional movement with very large organizations."

One of animal law practitioners' most important functions remain the prevention and prosecution of animal cruelty cases. Until 1999, animal cruelty existed only as a misdemeanor in New York, which trailed behind more than 40 states that had felony cruelty laws, according to Stacy Wolf, director of legislative services and anti-cruelty training for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Today, prosecutors can charge the felony of aggravated cruelty to animals in cases in which a defendant intentionally kills or seriously injures a "companion animal." Aggravated cruelty to animals is punishable by up to two years in prison.

Wolf said criminal judges have recently taken other measures to protect animals -- even signing orders of protection to keep abusers away.

With the encouragement of animal law lobbyists, prosecutors have also taken more creative approaches in going after abusers. Using to their advantage the law's designation of animals as property, they have charged defendants with crimes including criminal mischief and arson for their mistreatment of animals.

Still, no law can be effective is it's not enforced, said animal law experts, who educate police on how to go after abusers. Attorneys said law enforcement authorities are sometimes slow to make arrests because they are ignorant of some animal laws and because of the difficulties of caring for animals seized in such cases.

"They're living things. They're not like evidence that you can put in a property locker," Wolf said. "The cost of caring for the animals has become a huge challenge."

That's why one of the priorities Suffolk's animal law committee will be working with municipalities on is laws governing the care of animals and the establishment of regulations for shelters, Suffolk Bar president Barry Smolowitz said.

By specializing in animal law, attorneys say they fulfill one of the noble tenets of their profession -- representing and protecting the most vulnerable.

"I think people look at animals as innocent, like children. They can't protect themselves, they have no voice," Chaitoff said. "Animals aren't just property."

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