Summer legal intern helps MSSPA

Maine's premier horse rescue and rehabilitation facility proudly announces the appointment of Carolyn M. Schnurr as its 2008 summer legal intern, courtesy of the Maine Association for Public Interest Law. MAPIL is the local affiliate of the National Association for Public Interest Law. The organization has three goals. The first is to encourage students to engage in one of many diverse volunteer legal opportunities during the school year and summer. The second goal is to encourage students to pursue careers in the public arena by demonstrating that public interest work is a viable and desirable alternative to working in the private sector. Third, MAPIL promotes the ethic of pro bono work.

The Alumni Foundation of the University of Maine School of Law contributes funds each year to the law school to be used in providing stipends (through the law school's MAPIL Fellowship Program) for students who engage in public interest work during the summer months.

MAPIL also raises funds through a variety of events, including an annual Public Interest Auction. The funds raised are contributed to the school for use in providing stipends for students who engage in public interest work during the summer months.

Ms. Schnurr, a third year law student at the University of Maine School of Law, received the award based on her application to provide research relevant to the mission of the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals. Ms. Schnurr, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, worked with the MSSPA in 2007 to help prepare a successful response to a defendant's appeal to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The appeal sought to overturn a civil conviction of animal cruelty. The underlying case involved the seizure by Maine law enforcement agents of four horses which had been transported by their then owner from California to Maine. Upon the horses' arrival in Maine, their condition caused a concerned Maine citizen to contact state animal welfare authorities. Thereafter, the statutorily defined process resulted in a finding of animal cruelty; ownership of the horses ultimately was awarded to the MSSPA.

Ms. Schnurr will be collecting, compiling and analyzing data from statutory and public sources throughout the United States to develop a matrix that captures a multitude of laws and regulations relevant to animal welfare and equine rescue. Attorney Meris J. Bickford, Vice President of External Affairs for the Society, will work with Ms. Schnurr to fulfill the AmeriCorps mission of improving resources for those practicing public interest law. The work product will be used by the Animal Welfare Advisory Council as it considers various proposals intended to improve animal welfare in Maine.

Carolyn Schnurr attended Georgetown College in Kentucky and Oxford University, where she studied philosophy and poetry. An avid athlete, Ms. Schnurr played collegiate volleyball for Georgetown College throughout her undergraduate career. Upon completion of her law degree, she intends to sit for the California bar examination and thereafter work with Dreamcatcher, an equine sanctuary in northern California.