Peter Sankoff

Peter Sankoff is a Professor at the University of Alberta (Canada), Faculty of Law who teaches and conducts research on animal law, criminal law and the law of evidence.  Peter is also Lead Counsel at Sankoff Criminal Law, where he concentrates on appellate work, animal law matters, and assisting other lawyers with complex litigation. He is also the Founder and CEO of Criminal Defence Essentials (CDE), which provides learning resources for litigators (petersankoff.com).

Peter is the author of editor of eleven books, including Animal Law in Australasia: A New Dialogue, Animal Law in Australasia: Continuing the Dialogue and Canadian Perspectives on Animal Law. He is currently working on a new treatise: Professor Sankoff’s Guide to Animal Protection Law in Canada.

Peter taught animal law at the University of Auckland from 2006-2010, and also as a Visiting Professor at Haifa University in Israel, the University of Melbourne, Lewis and Clark College of Law and the University of Western Ontario. He now teaches the subject bi-annually at the University of Alberta.

Peter has a long history of animal advocacy. He co-founded the Animal Rights Legal Advocacy Network (ARLAN) in New Zealand, and was the Director for that organization from 2001-2005. He sat on the Board of Directors for Animal Justice, a group of Canadian legal advocates working on animal law issues, from 2017-2020. In 2015, he represented the organization as lead counsel when it made submissions to the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of R v DLW, the first time an animal advocacy group had ever appeared before Canada's highest Court.

Website - www.petersankoff.com.