ALDF Secures Long-Term Victories for Animals

Founded in 1979, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) works to advance the interests of animals through the legal system. In pursuit of this goal, ALDF:

Note: While we believe all of ALDF's work is important, this review focuses primarily on ALDF's litigation work that helps farmed animals. To learn more about ALDF's other work, click here.

Example: ALDF v. Gary Herbert (Utah's Ag-Gag Law)

In 2013, ALDF filed a constitutional challenge to Utah's Ag-Gag law, which criminalized undercover investigations of factory farms. ALDF argued that the law violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

In 2017, the U.S. District Court of Utah struck down the law as unconstitutional. No appeal was filed, making the decision final.

This victory preserved the right to expose cruelty in the animal agriculture industry, and set a precedent that similar laws are likely unconstitutional.

ALDF's Other Notable Legal Wins

In addition to securing a court decision striking down Utah's Ag-Gag law, in the last 10 years ALDF has contributed to:

  • Striking down Ag-Gag laws in Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, and Arkansas, preserving the legality of undercover investigations.
  • Forcing the FDA, USDA, and EPA to disclose hidden information related to factory farms and slaughterhouses.
  • Protecting free speech for plant-based companies in Louisiana, Arkansas, and California—ensuring they can use labels like "vegan sausage" and "butter."

We believe these are all significant victories that will help animals for years to come. To learn more about ALDF's other legal wins, click here.

Note: In addition to changing the law in specific states, each of these rulings sets legal precedent, which makes it more likely for other states to adopt similar rulings.

Active Lawsuits

As of April 2025, ALDF is working on lawsuits that aim to:

  • Stop deceptive marketing practices in the meat industry.
  • Protect free speech for plant-based companies.
  • Preserve states’ ability to pass animal protection laws.

To view all of the lawsuits ALDF is currently working on, click here.

Cost Effectiveness

Unfortunately, it is infeasible to accurately quantify ALDF's impact in terms of animals helped per dollar because:

  • It is unclear how long ALDF's achievements will have an impact for.
  • It is unclear how many animals are helped by ALDF's achievements. For example, it is good for animals that it is legal to label a product "vegan sausage," but it is unclear how many animals this helps.
  • It is unclear how large of an area ALDF's achievements will impact, as the legal precedents they've helped establish could influence courts nationwide.

That said, since 2021, ALDF has had average annual expenditures of $16,189,282, and we believe this is a low cost relative to the significant impact ALDF is having across the United States.

Room for Improvement

We believe ALDF could improve by making it clearer how much of their work focuses on farmed animals. When we initially viewed ALDF's website, we were unaware that most of their litigation work (~60%) is related to farmed animals, and we were pleasantly surprised to find out this is the case.

Conclusion

ALDF has played a pivotal role in securing legal protections for animals in the United States, and appears well positioned to continue to do so in years to come. Accordingly, we believe ALDF is a strong option for donors interested in creating long-term change for animals.

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References

References were last checked on April 27, 2025.

    2.
    ALDF: Legislative Work

    Note: ALDF informed us that legislative work can be just as important for farmed animals as litigation. To this end, ALDF has been very active opposing the EATS Act and other legislative attempts to overturn CA's Prop 12 and MA's Question 3, including leading a bi-weekly coalition call. ALDF is also the lead on a federal bill to ban Octopus farming, having helped pass state bans in California and Washington, and is working on the Pigs and Public Health Act which would prevent downed pigs from being slaughtered for food.

    3.
    ALDF: Criminal Justice Program

    Note: ALDF's Criminal Justice Program works on farmed animal issues, including private prosecution work investigating a turkey producer over their use of ventilator shutdown.