The Farmer's Lawyer : The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm

"Sarah's story, told in her unique voice, inspires me—and I'm sure it will inspire you—to fight for family farmers." —Willie Nelson "An exquisitely written American saga." —Sarah Smarsh "Remarkably well told and heartfelt." —John Grisham The unforgettable true story of a young lawyer's impossible legal battle to stop the federal government from foreclosing on thousands of family farmers. In the early 1980s, farmers were suffering through the worst economic crisis to hit rural America since the Great Depression. Land prices were down, operating costs and interest rates were up, and severe weather devastated crops. Instead of receiving assistance from the government as they had in the 1930s, these hardworking family farmers were threatened with foreclosure by the very agency that Franklin Delano Roosevelt created to help them. Desperate, they called Sarah Vogel in North Dakota. Sarah, a young lawyer and single mother, listened to farmers who were on the verge of losing everything and, inspired by the politicians who had helped farmers in the '30s, she naively built a solo practice of clients who couldn't afford to pay her. Sarah began drowning in debt and soon her own home was facing foreclosure. In a David and Goliath legal battle reminiscent of A Civil Action or Erin Brockovich , Sarah brought a national class action lawsuit, which pitted her against the Reagan administration's Department of Justice, in her fight for family farmers' Constitutional rights. It was her first case. A courageous American story about justice and holding the powerful to account, The Farmer's Lawyer shows how the farm economy we all depend on for our daily bread almost fell apart due to the willful neglect of those charged to protect it, and what we can learn from Sarah's battle as a similar calamity looms large on our horizon once again. With a new foreword by Willie Nelson "An exquisitely written American saga." —Sarah Smarsh The "r emarkably well told and heartfelt" (John Grisham) story of a young lawyer's impossible legal battle to stop the federal government from foreclosing on thousands of family farmers. In the early 1980s, farmers were suffering through the worst economic crisis to hit rural America since the Great Depression. Land prices were down, operating costs and interest rates were up, and severe weather devastated crops. Instead of receiving assistance from the government as they had in the 1930s, these hardworking family farmers were threatened with foreclosure by the very agency that Franklin Delano Roosevelt created to help them. Desperate, they called Sarah Vogel in North Dakota. Sarah, a young lawyer and single mother, listened to farmers who were on the verge of losing everything and, inspired by the politicians who had helped farmers in the '30s, she naively built a solo practice of clients who couldn't afford to pay her. Sarah began drowning in debt and soon her own home was facing foreclosure. In a David and Goliath legal battle reminiscent of A Civil Action or Erin Brockovich , Sarah brought a national class action lawsuit, which pitted her against the Reagan administration's Department of Justice, in her fight for family farmers' Constitutional rights. It was her first case. A courageous American story about justice and holding the powerful to account, The Farmer's Lawyer shows how the farm economy we all depend on for our daily bread almost fell apart due to the willful neglect of those charged to protect it, and what we can learn from Sarah's battle as a similar calamity looms large on our horizon once again. 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