A Chicken Lawyer Tribute to Lawyers with Chickens!

Laura's new flock of 1L's.

The Chicken Lawyer website was established in 2013, primarily for 3 reasons!

1. The Chicken Lawyer had too many chicken pictures;

2. The Chicken Lawyer had too much fun saying “Chicken Lawyer”;

3. The Chicken Lawyer wanted to promote 2 notions:

     * Keeping chickens is fun!

     * Lawyers can be fun, too!

Since venturing out onto the Internet, The Chicken Lawyer has discovered other lawyers with chickens, so today’s blog is a compliment to just a few other J.D.’s with too many chicken pictures!

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Doc Brown & Kathy Shea Mormino, The Chicken Chick®.

Of course, no tribute to lawyers with chickens would be complete without a tribute to Kathy Shea Mormino, The Chicken Chick®. 

Kathy runs an impressive chicken keeping enterprise! She has a flock of over 50 beautiful chickens and is the founder and one-woman driving-force behind her blog The-Chicken-Chick.com and Facebook page (which is a Chicken Lawyer favorite!). 

Kathy writes for Hobby Farms Chickens and Hobby Farms Home magazines and online blogs belonging to Mother Earth News Magazine, Grit Magazine and Manna Pro Poultry.   She’s even brought the world of chicken-keeping into The Wall Street Journal!

The Chicken Lawyer did a little dance of joy when The Chicken Chick® enthusiastically agreed to contribute her story and pictures to this blog, but it should have been no surprise.  Kathy tirelessly shares her practical chicken-keeping experiences with the world and has a genuine passion for sharing an appreciation for chickens as pets with fellow chicken-keepers and non-chicken-keepers alike!

Kathy's new Olive Egger putting in long hours at the office.

What you may not realize is that Kathy is a lawyer, too!  She practiced law in Connecticut and worked for the Connecticut Judicial System as well as in private practice as an insurance defense litigator of special investigations fraud cases. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law.  The Chicken Lawyer wonders if Kathy’s old law school classmates follow Kathy’s chickens!  How could you not?  She has Black Copper Marans, Ameraucanas, Cochins, Seramas, Dorkings, Dark Cornish, a Silkie, a Buff Orpington, Tolbunt Polish Crested Frizzles, a Silver Spangled Hamburg, Olive Eggers; she even hatched chicks from P. Allen Smith's breeding pens!

Like The Chicken Lawyer, The Chicken Chick® has fun naming her chickens!  Jump on her Facebook page, and you can enjoy following the antics of Rachel, Blaze, Ally McBeak, Calista Flockheart, Caesar, ellen deHeneres, Marilyn Monroe, Thelma & Louise, and Doc Brown to name a few!

The Chicken Lawyer did not have to look far to find another chicken keeping lawyer. 

Perhaps they should offer a class in Poultry Law at The Northern Illinois University College of Law, because the school is hatching Chicken Lawyers! 

Both myself and Laura Hodge-Ulrich are new to the chicken keeping world.

Laura is a licensed attorney in Illinois and has practiced mainly injury law in both Central Illinois and Chicago. 

However, she grew up in a small farming community, so farming, 4-H, gardening and all that goes with it were second nature to her, too. When she had her own children and realized what a disconnect from the natural world they were going to have unless she made an effort to teach them how food grows, she decided to bring the "country life" back into her family. 

Every year, she seeks out a local farm to visit and pick up hatching eggs to see how many chicks her family can hatch.  Laura notes that the “turning of the eggs” for 21 days is an amazing way to teach her children diligence and gentleness. It is also a very neat biology lesson to candle the eggs at different stages. Hatching day ranks with Christmas morning for excitement factor for her family!  

Like a true lawyer, Laura has meticulously studied humidity, yolk absorbing, dry membranes, positioning, etc!  Unlike most lawyers, Laura can tell you a story about chasing a weasel out of her chicken coop via water hose.  I asked Laura if she used her legal skills while raising chickens, and she promptly fired back that she was contemplating naming a chicken “Blackacre,” and then having mock trials regarding who really owns him. Folks, that might be the first Chicken Lawyer joke.  And, you heard it here first!

Snoozing on the first day of class?

Thank you to both Laura and Kathy for contributing their stories and pictures!  You are amazing people doing amazing things!

If you are a Chicken Lawyer and would like to share your chicken tales and pictures, I want to hear from you!  You can connect with me on my own Facebook page!