PETA Foundation Names Envelope-Pushing Lawyer to Chief Operating Officer Post
For Immediate Release:
August 28, 2025
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Jeffrey Kerr, the longest serving Chief Legal Officer of any animal protection organization, will become the PETA Foundation’s first-ever Chief Operating Officer as of September 1.
During his 30 years at PETA, Kerr has led the world’s largest legal team working for animal rights. His team was named Corporate Counsel magazine’s 2017 Best Legal Department, and Kerr has been the lead lawyer in PETA’s groundbreaking cases seeking recognition of animals’ rights. These include:
- The Monkey Selfie case, which argued that a macaque named Naruto should own the copyright to—and profit from—photographs that he took. The case resulted in a settlement that included 25 percent of future revenue from the photographs being donated to charities that protect the habitat of Naruto and other crested macaques in Indonesia.
- Several successful constitutional challenges to “ag-gag” laws, which attempt to silence whistleblowers from exposing violations of anti-cruelty laws that occur behind closed doors in laboratories, on factory farms, in slaughterhouses and puppy mills, and at other facilities where animals are treated as commodities.
- Tilikum v. SeaWorld, the lawsuit to end SeaWorld’s enslavement of orcas under the 13th Amendment.
Kerr is now pursuing PETA’s 1st Amendment right to receive communications from monkeys imprisoned in government laboratories in a lawsuit challenging the National Institutes of Health to allow PETA primatologists to receive real-time video feed of monkeys undergoing fright experiments.
Kerr, who brings decades of finance, operations, and business management experience to his new role, says, “I look forward to safeguarding and extending PETA’s global reach while continuing to develop new legal cases that push for fundamental rights for others who are discriminated against for not having been born human.”
“Jeff has been an invaluable member of our staff for over 30 years, guiding and advising us on litigation and business matters of all kinds,” says PETA Foundation President Ingrid Newkirk. “His COO role is a well-earned extension of his professional acumen.”
Kerr graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, which in 2018 recognized his body of public service work with the prestigious Shaping Justice Award for Extraordinary Achievement. He completed his undergraduate studies at George Mason University, where he was a Weber scholar.
PETA—whose motto reads, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way”—is the largest animal liberation organization in the world, and PETA entities have more than 10.4 million members and supporters globally. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
