Legal Impact for Chickens
Using strategic litigation to hold corporations accountable for cruelty to farmed animals.
5
lawsuits filed since their founding
1
undercover investigation sponsored, looking into poultry giant Foster Farms
7
major law schools, including NYU and UC Berkeley, hosted LIC speakers in 2024
4
conferences and panels featured LIC in 2024
About Legal Impact for Chickens
Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC) works to make factory-farm cruelty a liability in the United States. LIC files strategic lawsuits for chickens and other farmed animals, and develops and refines creative methods to civilly enforce existing cruelty laws in factory farms.
Legal Impact for Chickens at a Glance (2025)
Founded
2021
Revenue (2024)
$859 thousand
Growth
Can effectively absorb $1.6 million per year in 2026 and 2027.
Outcomes
Works to improve welfare for farmed chickens in the U.S.
Scope
Employs litigation and enforcement with potential to improve conditions for millions of chickens annually.
Direction
Demonstrates strong reasoning and strategic prioritization.
What is the unique problem?
Each year, about 9 billion chickens are farmed for meat or eggs in the U.S. They endure serious welfare issues, including bone breakages, hunger, thirst, rough handling, and other harms well beyond what most people would consider acceptable. Although such cruelty often falls under existing laws, prosecutions are rare, leaving systemic suffering largely unchallenged, allowing violations to persist.
How does Legal Impact for Chickens solve it?
LIC is the only organization fully dedicated solely to employing civil litigation to address factory-farm cruelty. Their lawyers systematically develop, refine, and apply legal strategies to ensure state cruelty laws are enforced and that confinement bans won by the movement are upheld. By holding corporations legally accountable, LIC works to improve conditions for billions of chickens now, while building durable legal precedents that protect animals for generations to come.
Recent Key Achievements
Sponsored an investigation that led Foster Farms to announce new welfare policies, while cease-and-desist letters compelled Rural King to improve conditions for about 600 thousand chicks annually.
Defeated a legal challenge in LIC v. Alexandre Family Farm, establishing that SPCAs can sue agricultural companies for animal cruelty violations.
Created a pathway for advocates to influence corporate sentencing by filing an amicus brief documenting a company’s history of animal abuse.
Conclusion
Legal Impact for Chickens’ strategic litigation has the potential to create transformative change for billions of animals. Their sustained legal pressure and growing academic recognition demonstrate competent execution of their strategic approach. However, consistent with their long-term, high-impact, low-probability strategy, transformative legal victories have not yet materialized. Therefore, while we recognize their significant potential, our recommendations favored organizations with more established track records of large-scale impact.
