Megan Penrose was born in Sydney, Australia and moved to California, where she has lived for many years. Megan was that kid who would risk life and limb to rescue a drowning bee from a pond, stop other kids from stomping on ants, or sneak her dog into her room.
Megan became interested in studying law while working in human resources. She moved to San Francisco and attended Golden Gate University School of Law where she studied environmental law, worked in the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic, was a Teacher’s Assistant for one of her environmental law professors, and interned at the Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy.
Megan put her career plans on hold while raising a family. During this time, she joined the Board of a dog rescue and volunteered both with and without her son, walking, feeding, cleaning, fostering and transporting dogs and puppies. Over those ten years Megan did as much as she could to help homeless, abused and neglected dogs, but it was never enough. For every dog rescued, spayed or neutered, vaccinated, treated, rehabilitated and rehomed, there were thousands more who were destined to lives of misery or premature death.
Megan’s passion to change what she saw lead her to pursue an LLM in animal law at Lewis and Clark. Her goal is to acquire the knowledge, skill and connections to stop the reality that her work is akin to “emptying the ocean with a spoon”, and to affect real change. For Megan that involves; changing the way society perceives animals and harnessing the political power to change local, state and national laws around spay/neuter requirements, breeding, neglect, exploitation and cruelty laws.
Megan is excited to join the Lewis and Clark Animal Law community and to be surrounded by like-minded animal lovers.