LEAP Announces Fall 2026 Speaker Series
The Law, Environment & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School has announced its Fall 2026 Speaker Series. The series begins Sept. 22 with a talk by Leigh Currie, impact officer at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, who will discuss her state-based organization’s efforts to tackle agricultural climate emissions. On Oct. 13, FarmSTAND co-founder and executive director Jessica Culpepper will join LEAP for a talk about the need for an intersectional, community-driven approach to food system reform.
Read more about and register for all of LEAP’s spring events below.
“State-level Climate Advocacy in America’s Heartland” with Leigh Currie
Sept. 22 at 12:10–1:10 p.m.
Sterling Law Building, Room 122
Register for Sept. 22 (in-person event)
Lunch will be provided
Minnesota has a significant population of livestock animals and a goal to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Leigh Currie, Impact Officer at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), will discuss how her state-based environmental legal organization is trying to tackle agricultural climate emissions to reconcile these two competing facts.
Currie has a B.S. in environmental science and biology from Tufts University and an M.S. in conservation biology from the University of Minnesota. Currie graduated salutatorian in 2006 from William Mitchell College of Law. In addition to her time at MCEA, Currie has also clerked for the Minnesota Court of Appeals, practiced environmental law at a private firm, worked as an adjunct law professor, and served as a Special Assistant Attorney General at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.
This event is co-sponsored with the Yale Environmental Law Association.
Lessons from the Frontlines of Food Systems Reform with Jessica Culpepper
Oct. 13, 12:10–1:10 p.m
Sterling Law Building, Room 120
Register for Oct. 13 (in-person event)
Lunch will be provided
Jessica Culpepper is co-founder and executive director at FarmSTAND. Her work focuses on how industrial animal agriculture simultaneously harms neighboring communities, workers, public health, water quality, and the climate, while concentrating economic and political power in the hands of large agribusinesses. Culpepper will discuss how meaningful food system reform requires integrating legal advocacy with environmental justice, public health evidence, and grassroots movements, framing the law not merely as a mechanism for enforcing regulations but as one of several complementary tools for shifting power toward communities affected by industrial animal agriculture.
Culpepper's career has been focused on legal advocacy on behalf of farmed animals and communities harmed by industrial animal agribusiness. Before co-founding FarmSTAND, she was the director of the Public Justice Food Project. As a lawyer, Culpepper worked primarily on fighting pollution from factory farms with fenceline communities and advocating for policy reform to advance fair food systems. She is chair of the board of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project.
This event is co-sponsored with Yale Environmental Humanities, the Yale Animal Law Society, the Yale Environmental Law Association, and Plant-Forward Yalies.
