WORCESTER divorce lawyer Kevin Harris-James has always loved animals. When he was a lad growing up in the county his family had dogs, cats, gerbils and other small pets.

If it moved, Kevin would try and catch it and keep it as a pet. He even managed to catch a fox once and kept it in the shed – until his Dad found out.

Now a partner and the head of family law (Worcester and Birmingham) based in the Worcester office of solicitors Harrison Clark Rickerbys, 47-year-old Kevin said when he studied for his degree, he actually wanted to do oceanography. He had ambitions to become an underwater photographer for the National Geographic magazine.

But his dad, a policeman, had other ideas and guided him into the legal profession where he would also bring in a steady income.

But in recent years, Kevin has been able to combine his love of wildlife with his law work. While he was with the national law firm Irwin Mitchell in Birmingham, he did some legal work for Birmingham-based businesswoman Karine Hauser.

Karine, who has a Swiss/Finnish heritage and travels all over Europe for business, and her sister Anna shared his love of wildlife and, following visits to Romania, set up two charities with Kevin’s legal expertise to rescue, rehabilitate and protect both dogs and bears.

“We became very good friends and she got involved with setting up a dogs charity,” said Kevin. He explained that Romania has a serious stray dog problem where they are treated like vermin.

The Love Underdogs charity has established a rescue centre in Romania’s third largest city of Brasov, which has a Government dog pound that Kevin likened to a canine version of Auschwitz.

Stray and unwanted dogs are put into crowded cages with little concern for their health or hygiene. “The city dog pound is like Auschwitz. There are dog carcasses everywhere and excrement. The smell is awful.”

The Love Underdogs rescue centre takes traumatised, ill and injured dogs and treats them to get them into a good physical condition before rehoming them. Last year Kevin took one of the rescued dogs, Bella, himself to live alongside his family border collie Basil.

“Bella had mange and was emaciated when she went to the rescue centre. She came from the dog pound before going to the rescue centre. Because she was so aggressive, no one would take her. That is the story of a lot of the centre’s dogs. We worked hard with her and she is now a wonderful dog,” said Kevin.

“One of the dogs was hit by a car and left for dead. It was in the city dog pound with a broken leg. It came to the rescue centre to be looked after and is coming to England to be rehomed this month. Six people have already said they want to give it a home.”

Dogs being rehomed through Love Underdogs are split into two groups, said Kevin. Large dogs are sent to Germany because the Germans prefer big dogs, while the medium and small dogs come to England.

All the dogs being rehomed are shown on the charity’s website http://www.loveunderdogs.org/ and the charity vets all applicants before dogs are allocated. “We probably refuse more people than we allow to have a dog. We do not want a dog to come back,” said Kevin.

The charity retains ownership of the dogs so that if a new home cannot continue to look after the animal, it is found another new home by the charity.

Kevin and his wife Christine recently made their first visit to the rescue centre while on another visit to Brasov to mark the 10th anniversary of a bear sanctuary – Libearty Sanctuary - supported by the Hauser sisters’ other charity Hauser Bears. Kevin is a trustee and legal advisor to both charities.

The sanctuary now holds 80 bears, which have been rescued from circuses, laboratories, zoos and the streets, and are too traumatised to be released back into the wild.

Karine and Anna Hauser set up the bear charity in 2009 and they now work with partners all over the world to protect bears. The Romanian sanctuary focuses on European brown bears.

The sanctuary anniversary celebrations were also attended by the British and Swiss ambassadors for Romania, senior representatives of international charities supporting the sanctuary, the regional mayor and other local dignitaries as well as Irish actress Evanna Lynch who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films who supports the sanctuary’s work.

They all had a chance to see the bears in their protected forest setting. “It was hard to believe, when I was up close to the bears, that only the previous day I had been at my desk in Worcester,” said Kevin.

“It was a fantastic and rewarding experience to be there and I was humbled by the passion and commitment of those involved, not least Anna and Karine Hauser who remain steadfast in their support for the sanctuary.

“I am proud to be associated with such a worthy cause and to be a trustee with the charity.”

He also met Evanna. “She was very down-to-earth and passionate about the bears, and a very worthy ambassador for the sanctuary.”

He said the bear charity has two aims – to rescue bears and support them in the sanctuary in Romania, and to carry out an education programme in China where bear bile is extracted from the animals for use in medicine, which Kevin said has no proven beneficial health effects.

Further information about the bears is available by visiting http://www.hauserbears.com/ and http://bearsanctuary.com/libearty-bear-sanctuary.

“I am passionate about wildlife and to be able to contribute to its protection through my legal work is wonderful,” added Kevin, who paid for him and his wife’s trip to Romania and said they now plan to visit every year.