15 minutes with attorney Brook Duer

Brook Duer is a staff attorney at the Penn State Center for Agricultural and Shale Law. Starting in private practice in Lancaster County and representing clients in agriculture, he made his way to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, where he was chief counsel for most of his tenure.

Duer spoke with Successful Farming^® magazine about what drew him into the law field, how he gained an impressive understanding of HPAI and related regulations during the 2014–15 outbreak, and some advice for farmers during the current outbreak. 

SF: How did you get your start practicing law?

BD: I decided to go to law school because I was, believe it or not, in a rock and roll band, and the manager of the band was in law school himself. He kind of talked me into it. I went to the University of Pittsburgh Law School, and then when I got out, I was looking to get away from the city. Lancaster County in Pennsylvania [west of Philadelphia] had an opening. 

I got into private practice, and you can’t really be in a town like this without representing agriculture clientele in various forms. I really enjoyed understanding a bit more about how people make a living in this industry and all of the moving parts. 

Around 2007 I went up to the Department of Agriculture, and I became the chief counsel there in short order. I worked there for 12 years, and eight of those years I was the chief counsel. 

It was such a great education. If I had known the interesting aspects of being an in-house attorney for an agricultural regulator, I probably would’ve done it a lot earlier. That was just an eye-opening experience, a great 12 years.

When you’re outside of government, you don’t always see how hard some people work at it and how much they put into it. That really did kind of turn my head around, you know? This is a worthwhile endeavor, from the government standpoint, to try to make these programs work better, try to make things happen in the best possible way for farmers and other agriculture stakeholders.

I came in from the outside, not being a longtime government lawyer. Luckily, when I got there, I had a good staff who had experience. I just picked up everything I could from these people. 

When you’re in private practice, people expect you to get a result. That’s what they’re paying you for. I think that was something I brought from the outside. In government I tried to just apply the same thing, which is, if they brought me into this, then they expect me to achieve something.

SF: How did your government role and the 2014–15 HPAI outbreak intersect? 

BD: In Pennsylvania at that time, we were obviously concerned about the spread east, toward us. Like most of the Mid-Atlantic portion of the country, we have very high numbers in terms of poultry production, so we were watching very intently. 

Everybody was doing the same thing, which was learning how USDA was handling all of the big questions, whether it was how do you dispose of carcasses or how you do the depopulation — what’s working, what’s not working. We were also very intently watching the relationship of USDA with farmers.

We were very intent on trying to make sure that this went well, if it ever happened here. We used to have a lot of these tabletop exercises where we would do simulations and start to learn the processes. 

When you are in agriculture, you understand the major animal diseases. You understand on paper what these are, but you don’t necessarily have firsthand experience with them. Very few people do. But the 2014–15 outbreak gave some people firsthand experience, and it gave others a chance to watch that. It certainly improved everybody’s understanding of what you do, and it improved the USDA’s and [the agency's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service] operations immensely.

In the federal system, animal disease control is a highly technical little niche. Animal disease control, when you work at the state level, is much more visible, and the gravity of it, I think, becomes more real. If this part of your state department of agriculture doesn’t work well or doesn’t have the resources to function at its ideal capacity in times of crisis, then that’s not a good situation for the state.

SF: How much did you know about HPAI before your role with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture? 

BD: Absolutely nothing, to be honest with you. I remember walking in, and the gentleman who was the chief counsel before me gave me some orientation to a few things. He handed me this avian influenza pandemic emergency plan. I had this vague memory of avian influenza having some ability to cross over to people, but I really didn’t have any kind of firm foundation and understanding. I really opened the books and started understanding what was going on in 2014. I was there from 2007 to 2014 before I really had to get into it.

I was always fascinated by the amount of authority that was given to the state veterinarians and the animal health personnel under our state law to do things immediately by orders. Quarantine orders can be quite expansive and burdensome, so it’s quite interesting to watch that kind of authority be used judiciously. 

You watch the level of expertise from the regulatory people, veterinarians, and others — you get a new respect for the depth of their knowledge. It takes many minds to put together these quarantine orders. 

When you first get into government as a lawyer, you want to live a bit by the premise of “Why do you do it that way?” It’s good to push your people to examine why something is done a certain way, and “Just because we always did it that way” isn’t the answer. You have to think further than that. 

But then, on the other hand, you gain a new respect for why it’s done that way. When you start getting into things as drastic as quarantine orders, you start to realize that because it’s always been done that way — has history to it — it’s a history worth figuring out before you change it. 

In the course of all of these HPAI measures that are being taken, we have not had any standoffs where people aren’t letting the USDA officials in or they aren’t listening. I’m amazed at how civil this has been done — the quarantine orders and other measures — since 2014. There’s been cooperation. Rationality has won out in the execution of these disease control measures, which is something to be very thankful for. 

SF: From your point of view of the current outbreak, what should all poultry and dairy farmers know when it comes to controlling HPAI?

BD: Your animal health veterinarian staff, whether it’s your state staff, or your USDA staff in this particular instance, are some of your greatest assets. Gain as much knowledge from these people as you can while you’re around them, because it’ll help you think about the problems better in the future. 

Try to look at their perspective and understand why things are the way they are, and then have a discussion about it. Learning from all of these professionals that are in this field and have been in this field for a long time is so key to this.