THE FARMER'S LAWYER

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.