Allie Phillips is an attorney licensed in Michigan and Maryland. As a former prosecuting attorney, she has dedicated her career to helping victims of crime, particularly animals and children, and raising awareness about protecting animals to keep communities safe. In 2015, Allie was named one of America’s Top Animal Defenders by the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
She is an author and consultant assisting organizations on innovative methods to protect animals and to promote more compassionate connections between animals and humans.
Allie was an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Michigan for many years handling felony and high-profile cases, including heading the 1999 MSU Riot prosecutions. Since 1997, she has been training and consulting with prosecutors and criminal justice professionals. In 2003, she became a Senior Attorney with the National District Attorneys Association’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse and National Child Protection Training Center in Alexandria, Virginia. She specialized in the investigation and prosecution of child abuse, created a training program on the co-occurrence between animal abuse and intra-familial violence, authored numerous professional articles, and traveled the country training prosecutors, law enforcement and child protection professionals on best practices to benefit child victims.
In 2007, she joined the American Humane Association as Vice President of Public Policy and Vice President of Human-Animal Strategic Initiatives. She drafted and analyzed federal and state legislation to protect animals and children, including being the author of the 2009-10 legislative bill to ban pound seizure in Michigan (which passed the House and ran out of time in Senate) and a bill to ban gas chambers in Michigan shelters. She oversaw special initiatives related to human-animal interactions, including launching the Pets and Women’s Shelters (PAWS) Program in 2008 (now Sheltering Animals & Families Together (SAF-T)™) which she created in the mid 1990’s. This program is the first and only national initiative to help domestic violence shelters create on-site housing for family pets so that families in crisis do not have to be separated from their pets or leave them behind in an abusive home. Allie appeared on The Today Show about the program. Her work has also been featured in numerous publications including the Associated Press, USA Today, The Washington Post, Cat Fancy Magazine and Chatelaine Magazine in Canada. She also co-created the Therapy Animals Supporting Kids (TASK)™ Program which sets forth guidelines on how to effectively incorporate therapy animals to help abused children, especially through the court process.
From 2011-2015 Allie returned to the National District Attorneys Association to launch and direct the National Center for Prosecution of Animal Abuse as well as act as Deputy Director for the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. In her position as director of NCPAA, she raise awareness and importance among prosecutors and allied professionals on the proper handling of animal abuse cases, especially as they relate to family violence.
Allie has conducted over 350 trainings across the United States to prosecutors, judges, child, family violence, and animal protection professionals, and has authored more than 50 publications. Her animal advocacy work has been featured on The Today Show, in the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law’s Magazine (December 2010) and as the cover story for Alpha Xi Delta Quill Magazine (Spring 2010).
She is a graduate of Michigan State University and received her Juris Doctorate cum laude from University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.