Essential reading for any ag lawyer, farmer, lender or anyone who has anything to do with agriculture.” —Des Moines Register
“Sarah Vogel's passion to save the family farm comes through in The Farmer's Lawyer, which is not only a genuine and brilliant story, but a necessary one.” —Stephanie Land
“Engaging, suspenseful, and often heartbreaking . . . This stirring account is a testimony to [Vogel's] continuing work as a strong advocate for America's farmers.” —Booklist
“An enjoyable true-life legal drama on par with Erin Brockovich.” —Library Journal
“An engrossing legal saga and a rousing tribute to prairie populism.” —Publishers Weekly
“This is my kind of storythe young, inexperienced lawyer facing big odds. It's remarkably well told and heartfelt. I really enjoyed it.” —John Grisham
“Sarah's story, told in her unique voice, inspires meand I'm sure it will inspire youto fight for family farmers.” —Willie Nelson, Artist and Farm Aid President
“The Farmer's Lawyer, both an exquisitely written American saga and a trove of lived research, might serve as the definitive document of the 1980s farm crisis that in some ways never ended. Sarah Vogel's heroic battle on behalf of family farmers was historicand has never been more relevant.” —Sarah Smarsh, author of HEARTLAND
“Sarah Vogel is a tireless advocate, and The Farmer's Lawyer is a powerful account about her never-ending pursuit of justice.” —Dan Barber, author of THE THIRD PLATE
“Remarkable . . . Anyone seeking a dispassionate history of the case should look elsewhere. This is an advocate's tale of fighting callous bureaucrats and cold-hearted prosecutors, while struggling to keep the lights on in her own home . . . Vogel ultimately won an injunction on behalf of 240,000 FmHA borrowers nationwide . . . [and] went on to serve as North Dakota's agriculture commissioner, the first woman elected to the office in any state. This book is a testament to what was an even greater achievement.” —Christian Science Monitor
“The most important book about the practical issues farmers face that I have ever read.” —Dr. Frederick L. Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and President of the Board of Directors, Stone Barns
“The struggle for justice for farmers is as old as the American story. No one has written a braver or better chapter than Sarah Vogel. She recounts it here, with all the historical perspective, legal genius and righteous passion that made her the great champion of the women and men who work the land.” —John Nichols, author of THE FIGHT FOR THE SOUL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
“A fascinating political history about farming in America, a gripping personal story about one person battling a vast, unjust system, and a clear-eyed investigation of the discriminatory systems and policies that drove so many family farmers out of business.” —Megan Kimble, author of UNPROCESSED
“What a wonderful book! The Farmer's Lawyer is riveting. Its characters amount to a new pantheon of heroes-author Sarah Vogel as well as the white and Native American farmers whose dogged righteousness prevails and inspires. I am humbled, heartened, and moved.” —Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize winning author of ENCOUNTERS AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD
“Vogel is a gifted writer, weaving history, politics and vivid descriptions of the people and landscape with personal challenges like her financial turmoil as a single mother in a male-dominated field … Great for fans of legal dramas, Sarah Vogel's The Farmer's Lawyer will leave readers inspired as she details their fight for truth, justice and family farms in the 1980s.” —Shelf Awareness
“Vogel follows this slice-of-history story with advice for the future … the national importance of this case is such that anyone who isn't familiar deserves to know what happened, so grab THE FARMER'S LAWYER. It's worth checking out.” —The Bookworm Sez
07/12/2021
A lawyer recalls her battle to prevent the Reagan administration from running indebted farmers off their land in this feisty debut. Vogel, a former North Dakota agriculture commissioner, was lead counsel in Coleman v. Block, an early 1980s class-action lawsuit against the Farmers Home Administration, a federal agency that made loans to farmers. Prodded by the Reagan administration’s ideological opposition to handouts to farmers, the agency cracked down on borrowers who fell behind on loan payments, and pressured them to sell their farms to repay loans (and foreclosed if they refused); cut off credit for basics like livestock feed; seized farmers’ income and froze their bank accounts; and violated laws in denying loan-payment deferrals. Vogel sets this appalling story of a politicized bureaucracy run amok against a rich portrait of North Dakota farm life and its political tradition of rural solidarity. (She encountered a darker side of that when right-wing militias fomented violence against foreclosures.) Her travails as a single mom, falling hopelessly behind on her own bills, add a vivid subplot. The result is an engrossing legal saga and a rousing tribute to prairie populism. Agent: Mackenzie Brady Watson, Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency. (Oct.)
08/13/2021
In this engaging work, lawyer Vogel recounts her battle against Farmers Home Administration (FHA) that began with representing a group of local plaintiffs and morphed into a national class action lawsuit involving the ACLU. Vogel had occupied several prestigious positions after law school when she decided to move back to North Dakota in the early 1980s. There she stumbled across unfair practices by the FHA, the U.S. agriculture agency that extended credit and gave loans and grants to individual farmers and low-income rural American. She learned that the FHA was freezing personal accounts of farmers when their loans lapsed, without offering the deferral they were legally entitled to. Hundreds of farmers began calling Vogel at all hours of the day, hoping for legal assistance. Vogel eventually filed a class-action suit on behalf of 240,000 farmers, Coleman v. Block, whose result was preventing tens of thousands of farm foreclosures. Vogel's memoir approaches the case with a sense of history, giving in-depth insight on what happened within the farming community and the procedures and institutions put in place to prevent it from happening again. She recounts the personal stories of her plaintiffs with heart and discusses her own involvement as a non-trial lawyer with self-deprecating humor while also showing her intense dedication to her clients. VERDICT An enjoyable true-life legal drama on par with Erin Brockovich. Vogel uses only the occasional legalese, and her story will appeal to readers who enjoy a good underdog legal story.—Stacy Shaw, Denver
2021-09-29
A lawyer recalls how a group of mistreated farmers stood up to the U.S. government—and forced changes in federal law—by joining forces in a class-action lawsuit.
Few people today may recall the severity of the nationwide crisis that led to the Farm Aid benefit concerts and eventually to the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987, which curbed some of the injustices that fueled it. This welcome refresher course focuses on a pivotal class-action lawsuit by farmers (Coleman v. Block), blending courtroom drama with a memoir by the plaintiffs’ lead counsel, a young single mother who not only had never tried a case, but hadn’t set foot in a courtroom. Vogel had returned to her native North Dakota from a government job in Washington, D.C., when farmers began contacting her about unfair or illegal actions by the Farmers Home Administration, a federal agency that made loans to family farmers. Pressured by the Reagan administration to slash farm aid, the agency dealt harshly with farmers who fell behind on loan repayments, often because of drought or other natural disasters. It emptied farmers’ bank accounts, seized money they needed to feed their cattle or families, and foreclosed on those only one payment behind on real estate debt. It also failed to give farmers proper notice of legal actions against them and turned hearings on their grievances into kangaroo courts run by people who’d been involved in the unfair actions against them. Vogel lost her house while representing the farmers, most of whom couldn’t pay her, but she saw impressive displays of rural grit and solidarity and later became North Dakota’s first female agriculture commissioner. Though this memoir lacks the literary flair of books like Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action, it’s a brave attorney’s clear and thorough story of the power of collective legal action that belongs in every law library.
A well-documented eyewitness account of egregious injustices to family farmers.