About:

Sarah Vogel

Sarah is an attorney and former politician whose career has focused on family farmers and ranchers. Vogel was the first woman in U.S. history to be elected as a state commissioner of agriculture. In 2006, the American Agricultural Law Association awarded her its Distinguished Service Award for contributions to the field of agriculture law, and Willie Nelson honored her at Farm Aid's thirtieth anniversary in 2015 for her service to farmers. An in-demand speaker and a passionate advocate for Native American rights, Vogel lives in Bismarck, North Dakota.

The Farmer's Lawyer

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.

Moderator Nicole Donaghy

Nicole Montclair-Donaghy is a Hunkpapa Lakota from the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, she is also a descendant of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nations, and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

Nicole earned her education from United Tribes Technical College in Business Administration.

In 2014, Nicole joined Dakota Resource Council, an organization of the Western Organization of Resource Councils network, as a field organizer working on oil and gas issues in the Bakken. In October 2018, Nicole joined North Dakota Native Vote to boost voter education and engagement in response to the North Dakota voter identification law.

Nicole is the Executive Director of North Dakota Native Vote and lives in rural Bismarck with her husband John, their three children, and their two dogs.

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