The Farmer's Lawyer

From the first woman in U.S. history to be elected a state Commissioner of Agriculture, the dramatic story of how she defended 240,000 family farmers at risk of foreclosure, and won.

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 nature continued to devastate crops. Instead of receiving assistance from the government like they had in the 1930s, these hardworking family farmers were threatened with foreclosure by the very agency originally created to help them.

Desperate, they called Sarah Vogel. Sarah, a young lawyer and single mother, heard story after story of farmers trying to hold on to their land and livelihoods with little success. She left her career in D.C. and returned to her home state of North Dakota with plans to represent them. Sarah, too, quickly began drowning in debt when her clients didn't have the money to pay her. And yet, despite the legal setbacks, time away from her son, and soaring debt, she kept fighting-and won.

An evergreen David and Goliath story, The Farmer's Lawyer investigates how the farm economy we all depend on for our daily bread almost fell apart due to the willful negligence of those charged to protect it, and what we can learn from Sarah's victory, as the calamity looms large on our horizon once again.