The National Law Enforcement Council (NLEC), an advisory group organized by the Animal Wellness Foundation and Animal Wellness Action and consisting of current and former district attorneys, attorneys general, and other law enforcement leaders, promotes appropriate enforcement of anti-cruelty statutes and works to strengthen the legal framework against animal abuse. Their work is guided by the notion that perpetrators of animal cruelty often demonstrate other socially dangerous behaviors.

Drew Edmondson, Co-Chair

Drew Edmondson was elected attorney general of Oklahoma four times, and was selected by his peers to serve a term as president of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG). During his tenure, he successfully defended the state’s anti-cockfighting ballot initiative, which went into effect in 2003. The Navy veteran and former school teacher was also a state legislator and, for a decade, the District Attorney for Muskogee County. In 2016, Edmondson led an effort to defeat an over-reaching “Right to Farm” measure on the November 2016 ballot in Oklahoma.

Josh Marquis, Co-Chair

Josh Marquis served from 1994 to 2018 as Astoria, Oregon’s elected District Attorney and has personally tried numerous animal abuse cases in the Oregon courts. In all, he’s served as a trial prosecutor for 35 years, and did a stint as president of the Oregon District Attorney’s Association and vice president of the National District Attorney Association.

Dave Aronberg

Dave Aronberg is the elected State’s Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave graduated from Harvard undergraduate and Law Schools before becoming Florida’s youngest state Senator in 2002. Dave served in that post until 2010, before first being elected State’s Attorney for Palm Beach in 2012, and was then re-elected in 2016.

Bob Butterworth 

Bob Butterworth has served the State of Florida in virtually every branch of state government. Butterworth served as a judge in the 1970s before being elected Sheriff of Broward County Florida in 1979. In 1986, he was elected Attorney General of the State of Florida, a post he held for 16 years until 2002. In 2006 he was appointed Secretary of Florida State Department of Children and Families. He is currently is Of Counsel to the law firm of Fowler White Boggs in Ft. Lauderdale.

Steve Clark

Steve Clark served as the elected Attorney General of Arkansas from 1978 through 1988, winning election every two years. When first elected, he was the nation’s youngest state Attorney General at age 31. During his tenure, he served as President of NAAG.

Frankie Sue Del Papa

Frankie Sue Del Papa was the Attorney General of Nevada for three terms from 1991 until 2002. Before that she was elected Nevada’s Secretary of State, being the first woman in her state to be elected to either office.

Robert Ferber

Robert Ferber, a graduate of Columbia University School of Law, served as a prosecutor for the City of Los Angeles from 1979 through 2013. During his career, he implemented a more sophisticated and compassionate approach to the prosecution of the mentally ill, reducing the cycle of arrests and incarceration, and he also became the first and only special prosecutor of human trafficking in the Los Angeles area and later became a special gang prosecutor. In 2001, he become the first full-time animal cruelty prosecutor in the country and created the Animal Protection Unit, developing many of the first protocols and training materials for the investigation and successful prosecution of animal cruelty and neglect. He co-founded the L.A. Animal Cruelty Task Force and prosecuted hundreds of animal cruelty cases. He has trained thousands of prosecutors and law enforcement officers and written countless articles and materials on the topic.

Douglas Gansler

Douglas Gansler served from 1999 to 2007 as the elected Commonwealth Attorney in Montgomery County, Maryland. A graduate of Yale and the University of Virginia Law School, Gansler first served as an Assistant United States Attorney before election as the county prosecutor, a job in which he supervised the prosecution of the “Beltway Snipers.”  In 2006 he was elected Attorney General of Maryland, a post he held until January of 2015. In 2012 he was elected President of the NAAG. He is currently a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in Washington, D.C.

Chris Gorman

Chris Gorman served as Kentucky’s Attorney General from 1992 to 1996. Gorman earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Kentucky. His experience spans both the private and public sectors. His public sector work includes time with the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office, the District Commissioner for Jefferson County. His work in the private sector spans 32 years of legal experience. He is currently a Partner with Conliffe, Sandmann and Sullivan.

Richard Ieyoub

Richard Ieyoub served as Louisiana state Attorney General from 1992 to 2004. Before taking that office, Ieyoub was the county District Attorney of Calcasieu Parish in 1984 and was reelected in 1990. As attorney general, Ieyoub won a multimillion-dollar tobacco settlement for the state of Louisiana as compensation for the health care costs of smokers

George Jepsen

George Jepsen was Connecticut’s Attorney General from 2011 until 2019, and served as president of the NAAG. A graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard Law School, Jepsen served first in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1987 until 1991 and then in the Connecticut State Senate from 1991 until 2003. Jepsen is now a partner in the firm of Shipman & Goodwin.

Andrew Ketterer

Andrew Ketterer served as Attorney General of Maine from 1995 until 2001. Prior to that, he served two terms in Maine Legislature and in 2000 he was elected president of NAAG.  He is a partner in the law firm Ketterer & Ketterer with offices in Maine and Florida.

Jerry Kilgore

Jerry Kilgore was the Attorney General of Virginia from 2002 to 2005. Before serving as AG, Kilgore was Virginia’s Secretary of Public Safety from 1994 to 1998, and before that as a federal prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia. Kilgore is a member of the law firm Cozen O’Connor.

Peter Kilmartin

Peter Kilmartin served as Rhode Island’s Attorney General from January of 2011 until January of 2019. Kilmartin served as a police officer in the Pawtucket Police Department, retiring at the rank of Captain in 2008. He served as a State Representative from 1990 to 2010, serving his last five years as Majority Whip. 

Barbara LaWall

Barbara LaWall was re-elected in November 2018 to her sixth term as County Attorney of Pima County in Tuscon, Arizona. Lawall served 20 years as a Deputy County Attorney before being first elected in 1996. A member of the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission, Lawall has been part of the leadership of the National District Attorney’s Association for 20 years and has been repeatedly honored by the American Bar Association for her leadership and innovation as a local prosecutor.

Steve Leriche

Steve Leriche has been the elected District Attorney in Jefferson County (Central Oregon) for 10 years. He served for ten years before becoming DA as the office’s Chief Deputy DA and before that was an officer with the United States Army’s Judge Advocate General program in Panama, Ft. Lewis (WA), and Ft. Still (OK) where he was both Trial and Defense Counsel. Leriche graduated from Gonzaga University with a Bachelor’s degree and received his law degree in 1990 from the University of Oregon School of Law.

Bill Lockyer

Bill Lockyer served as California Attorney General from 1998 until 2006. Lockyer was elected president of the NAAG in 2003. Before becoming AG, Lockyer served for almost 25 years in the California State legislature, from 1973 to 1982 in the California Assembly, and then as a state Senator from 1983 until he was elected as Attorney General. Lockyer was subsequently elected to two terms as California’s State Treasurer, serving from 2008 through 2015.

Patricia Madrid

Patricia Madrid was Attorney General of New Mexico from 1999 until 2007. In 1978 when she became the first woman elected to sit as a district court judge in New Mexico, before becoming the first woman elected to the office of Attorney General. 

Dustin McDaniel

Dustin McDaniel was elected to the first of two terms as Arkansas Attorney General in 2006, just seven years after graduating from the University of Arkansas Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. He also went to the University of Arkansas for his undergraduate degree at the Walton College of Business. McDaniel served in the state legislature and also as a police officer for the Jonesboro Police Department. As AG, he was the key architect of a dramatic upgrade of Arkansas’ animal cruelty law and anti-cockfighting law, bringing animal welfare and agriculture stakeholders to the table. His office also made $250,000 available for training of police to enforce one of the nation’s strongest animal welfare laws. Starting in 2020, he’ll be working with the newly constituted Little Rock law firm of McDaniel Wolff & Benca, PLLC.

Jim Petro

Jim Petro was the Ohio Attorney General from 2003 to 2007. Petro started his legal career as an assistant prosecutor in Franklin County, Ohio, then in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1981-1990. Prior to becoming Attorney General, Petro served as State Auditor of Ohio from 1995 to 2003. Petro served most recently as the Chancellor of the Ohio State University system.

Lee Polikov

Lee Polikov is the current Sarpy County Attorney (Nebraska), having first been elected in 1999 and currently in his fifth term of office. Polikov was Chief Deputy in the county sheriff’s office until his election as chief prosecutor 20 years ago. 

John Sarcone

John Sarcone is the elected County Attorney for Des Moines, Iowa, having been elected to that post since winning election in 1990 and is currently serving his 8th term as chief prosecutor. Sarcone is a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the National District Attorneys Association.

John Thompson

John Thompson is the Executive Director of the National Animal Control Association and former deputy assistant director of the National Sheriffs Association. Thompson was previously police chief in Mount Rainier, Maryland and Asst. Sheriff in Prince Georges County.  In 2019 he was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Medal for outstanding achievement in the advancement of animal welfare.

Gregg Totten

Gregg Totten was first elected District Attorney of California’s Ventura County in 2002, and is now serving his fifth term. A career prosecutor, Totten joined the DA’s office as a Deputy DA in 1983, serving in that role until 1993 when he was appointed Executive Director of the California District Attorneys Association. In 1996 he returned to Ventura County as Chief Deputy DA and has been President of the California District Attorneys Association and Vice President of the National District Attorneys Association.

Anthony Troy

Anthony Troy served as Attorney General of Virginia from 1977 to 1978 and is currently a member of the law firm of Eckert Seamans.