Lawyers have ethical duties to identify and disclose conflicts of interest. As a lawyer who cares deeply about the lives of all animals, Mr. Karp pledges, except under extraordinary circumstances, not to represent those whose occupations or deeply-embedded interests prove inimical to nonhumans, such as:
(1) Breeders, sellers, vendors, dealers, or brokers of animals for sale;
(2) Outfitters, commercial fishers, trappers, commercial hunters, butchers, and slaughterhouse workers;
(3) Those who use and exploit animals for entertainment or profit, such as competitive tie-down ropers (calf ropers), steer busters, bull riders, horse trippers, horse sorers (Big Lick competitors), horse racers, team ropers, and other abusive rodeo eventers, as well as hansome cab/horse-drawn carriage operators;
(4) Those who professionally train dogs to hunt, maim, and kill other animals;
(5) Those charged or arrested for any form of animal abandonment, animal neglect, or animal cruelty;
(6) Those wishing to challenge mandatory spay/neuter laws;
(7) Those who own or operate farms or facilities keeping any animals for slaughter or sale; or for the sale or production of their unfertilized eggs, offspring, hides, skins, feathers, scales, fur, hair, blood, tissues, and other bodily fluids;
(8) Vivisectors;
(9) Those who have a contractual, commercial, or other legal dispute with a breeder, pet store, vendor of animals for sale, outfitters, or hunting dog trainers; and
(10) Those whose animal has been accused of killing another, as Mr. Karp most frequently represents victims and their families pursuing claims against such accused person.
Mr. Karp shares these conflicts to provide full transparency, to save prospective clients and inquirers time, and to maintain ethical consistency. As a strict vegan for over two decades and animal rights promoter and outreacher, Mr. Karp is acutely aware of the cruelties that occur in staggering horror daily, every second, to trillions of beings on the Earth. Many good people have no idea the deplorable conditions and fates that await so many sentient beings.
Having completed Level 1 Animal Control Academy training and having obtained Euthanasia certification, Mr. Karp is also expressly cognizant of the millions of homeless dogs and cats killed annually worldwide because people choose to buy, sell, and breed them, instead of rescuing and adopting discarded, worthy companions. Moreover, the large number of animals unnecessarily bred into existence are fed an exponentially larger number of other animals who are tortured over their short lives and then slaughtered, only compounding this avoidable misery. Mr. Karp has the ethical duty to decline cases that, and clients who, engender or exacerbate such conflict. Mr. Karp also has an ethical obligation to educate the public about the plight of the suffering, dying animals, including but not limited to those killed in shelter settings most often for no reason other than space and finite resources.
Please watch this KCTS (PBS) special titled “Inside Euthanasia: Peaceful Death,” a local piece filmed at Regional Animal Services of King County and Progressive Animal Welfare Society in Lynnwood. It explains in video more than a thousand words could possibly convey.
See also: https://www.aspca.org/blog/too-many-people-are-still-not-adopting-animals-0; https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/overpopulation/; and https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/nyregion/nyc-animal-shelters-overcrowding.html.
For further edification and awareness, please view: watchdominion.com, pignorantfilm.com, nationearth.com, gamechangersmovie.com, seaspiracy.org, cowspiracy.com.
Please direct any questions to Mr. Karp via the Contact form on this site.
The image above depicts the daily phenomenon where so many shelter animals are killed that they must be stockpiled in barrels until they can be collected for rendering.
