Professor of Law
- B.A. Bryn Mawr College, 1975
- M.A. Anthropology, UCLA, 1978
- Ph.D. UCLA, 1984
- J.D. Harvard, 1987
- Master in Spiritual Psychology, 2016
- UCLA Faculty Since 1988
Professor Bryant joined the UCLA Law faculty in 1988 with a concentration on Japanese law and society. Her scholarship focused on how Japanese law created and maintained vulnerability of women and numerical minorities in Japan, particularly through the lens of Japanese family law. Professor Bryant pursued a law degree after completing her doctorate in anthropology because she intended to continue with legal anthropology. However, Professor Bryant loved the Property course she took in law school and decided that joining a law faculty would enable her to teach Property while also pursuing her interest in interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching.
Professor Bryant began working on animal law in the spring of 1993. At that time there were no casebooks in the subject, and animal law was taught in only a handful of law schools. She has published on animal law and theory as well as more pragmatic subjects in animal law. In fact, all of her work, including the most theoretical, emphasizes practical applications. In 1998, Professor Bryant was the lead researcher and drafter of comprehensive shelter reform legislation in the state of California. One provision in particular—the right of rescue groups to take, rehabilitate, and rehome shelter animals slated for euthanasia—continues to have considerable importance because it gives legal standing to rescue groups seeking to improve conditions in animal shelters. Since 1998, Professor Bryant has worked on several legislative reform projects involving companion animals.
In addition to doctrinal courses, Professor Bryant directs the UCLA Dog Administrative Hearings Clinic through which students are trained to conduct actual hearings. The Clinic also works on projects through which the substantive and procedural law relevant to dog complaint hearings can be improved to result in more accurate and fair outcomes.
Professor Bryant is the Director of the UCLA Animal Law and Policy Small Grants Program. Working in concert with empirical research experts, she brings her own doctoral training in empirical research methodology to bear when reviewing applications for funding on a diverse array of projects whose results can shape the direction of animal law and policy reform. She is also conducting her own empirical research on animal law issues.
Besides her research and teaching on animal law, Professor Bryant has contributed to the scholarly literature on the right to hasten one’s own death in situations of irremediable suffering. She has also written about nonprofit organizations both in animal law and in the field of aid in dying. Indeed, Professor Bryant believes that nonprofit organizations are important vehicles for social justice change in the United States, and she enjoys working with students who take her courses in nonprofit organizations.
In 2016, Professor Bryant completed a Master in Spiritual Psychology. That program brought psychology theory and applications to life through an experiential learning format. Due to that program, Professor Bryant shifted from teaching exclusively doctrinal courses to teaching a mix of doctrinal and experiential courses. She has taught a simulation course designed to teach legal counseling in the field of elder law, and the clinic she directs is also based on practical ideas she learned in that program. All of her current teaching includes some element of experiential learning.
Bibliography
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Books
- Animal Law and the Courts: A Reader (edited by Taime L. Bryant, Rebecca J. Huss, David N. Cassuto). Thomson West (2008).
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Articles And Chapters
- Novel Food Ingredients: Food Safety Law, Animal Testing, and Consumer Perspectives, 106 Marq. L. Rev. 97 (2022). Full Text
- Aid-In-Dying Nonprofits, 57 San Diego Law Review 147 (2020).
- Why American Animal-Protective Legislation Does Not Always "Stick" and the Path Forward (with Mariann Sullivan), in Animal Welfare: From Science to Law, 77 (edited by Sophie Hild and Louis Schweitzer, L’Harmattan, 2019). Full Text
- Aid in Dying: The Availability of Ideal Medications for Use in “Right to Die” Jurisdictions in the United States, 34 Quinnipiac Law Review 705 (2016).
- Social Psychology and the Value of Vegan Business Representation for Animal Law Reform, 2015 Michigan State Law Review 1521 (2015). Full Text
- American Law: Legal Recognition of Animals’ Capacity to Experience Pain, in Animal Suffering: From Science to Law, 259-273 (edited by Thierry Auffret Van Der Kemp and Martine Lachance, Thomson Reuters Canada, 2013). Full Text
- Virtue Ethics and Animal Law, 16 (1) Between the Species 105-141 (2013). Full Text
- Transgenic Bioart, Animals and the Law, in Leonardo's Choice: Genetic Technologies and Animals, (edited by Carol Gigliotti, Springer, 2011). Full Text
- Denying Animals Childhood and its Implications for Animal-protective Law Reform, 6 Law Culture and the Humanities 56 (2010). Full Text
- Sacrificing the Sacrifice of Animals: Legal Personhood for Animals, the Status of Animals as Property, and the Presumed Primacy of Humans, 39 Rutgers Law Journal 247-330 (2008). Full Text
- False Conflicts, in Animal Law and the Courts: A Reader, (edited by Taimie L. Bryant, Rebecca J. Huss, David N. Cassuto, Thomson West, 2008). Full Text
- Similarity or Difference as a Basis for Justice: Must Animals be Like Humans to be Legally Protected from Humans?, 70 Law & Contemporary Problems 207-254 (2007). Full Text
- Animals Unmodified: Defining Animals/Defining Human Obligations to Animals, 2006 University of Chicago Legal Forum 137-94 (2006). Full Text
- Trauma, Law, and Advocacy for Animals, 1 Journal of Animal Law and Ethics 63-138 (2006). Full Text
- Mythic Non-violence, 2 Journal of Animal Law 1-13 (2006). Full Text
- Family Models, Family Dispute Resolution and Family Law in Japan, 14 UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal 1-27 (1995).
- "Responsible" Husbands, "Recalcitrant" Wives, Retributive Judges: Judicial Management of Contested Divorce in Japan, 18 Journal of Japanese Studies 407-43 (1992).
- For the Sake of the Country, for the Sake of the Family: The Oppressive Impact of Family Registration on Women and Minorities in Japan, 39 UCLA Law Review 109-68 (1991).
- California in Okeru Kekkon Kyoyuzaisan ho to Rikon ho (Community Property Law and Divorce Law in California), 223 Kesu Kenkyu 18 (1990).
- Oya-ko Shinju: Death at the Center of the Heart, 8 UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal 1-31 (1990).
- Sons and Lovers: Adoption in Japan, 38 American Journal of Comparative Law 299-336 (1990).
- Marital Dissolution in Japan: Legal Obstacles and Their Impact, 17 Law in Japan 73-97 (1984).
- Bunkajinruigakuteki Tachiba Yori Mita Kajichotei Seido (An Anthropological Perspective of the System of Family Dispute Mediation), 195 Kesu Kenkyu 40-71 (1983).
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Other
- Book Review, 41 Harvard Law Bulletin 26-7 (1990). Reviewing The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law, and Family in the United States and Western Europe, by Mary A. Glendon.
- Book Review, 48 Journal of Asian Studies 798-9 (1989). Reviewing Legal Pluralism: Toward a General Theory through Japanese Legal Culture, by Masaji Chiba.
- Mediation of Divorce Disputes in the Japanese Family Court System: With Emphasis on the Tokyo Family Court (Univ. of California. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA, 1984).