Sarah Vogel

Prior to her public service career, Sarah Vogel served as special assistant[4] to the Secretary of the Treasury in Washington DC. Returning to her home state of North Dakota, she represented family farmers during the 1980s farm crisis, most significantly as lead attorney in Coleman v. Block,[5] a national class action case filed on behalf of 240,000 farmers,[6] which resulted in an injunction prohibiting USDA from foreclosing on 16,000 farm families.[2] Her work on the case was featured in Life Magazine[7][8] and later became the basis of the 1984 movie Country,[2] starring Jessica Lange, earning the actress an Academy Award nomination.[9]

After retiring as Agriculture Commissioner, Vogel returned to private practice[10] at Wheeler Wolf Firm and later founded the Sarah Vogel Law Partners in Bismarck, North Dakota, where she practiced law with three other attorneys. Vogel was co-counsel Keepseagle vs. Vilsack,[11] a national class-action lawsuit which resulted in a $680 million settlement for Native American farmers affected by the USDA's discriminatory lending practices.[1] In 2011, Vogel went into solo law practice. Sarah Vogel Law Partners is now known as Braaten Law Office.[12]

Vogel became an assistant attorney general[13] in 1985. In 1986, she was named one of 20 young attorneys making a difference in the country[2] by the American Bar Association. In 1988, she was elected North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture, becoming the first woman in the U.S. to be elected for the position. In 1992 she was re-elected, serving through 1997. In her role as North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture, she also served on the state's Industrial Commission,[14] Water Commission,[15] and Agricultural Products Utilization Commission.[16] With Senator Kent Conrad, she co-founded Marketplace of Ideas,[17] becoming the nation's largest rural development program conference at the time. Vogel advocated for farmer-owned cooperatives. She was succeeded by Roger Johnson.[1]

In 1996, Vogel ran for a seat on the North Dakota Supreme Court, a bid that was ultimately unsuccessful.[1]

Continuing her advocacy for family farmers, in 2016 she co-wrote an op-ed[18] with musician Willie Nelson against North Dakota Measure 1, which would have furthered corporate farming in the state. The measure did not pass.[19]

The Coleman v Block case is the subject of Vogel's first book The Farmer's Lawyer, published by Bloomsbury Publishers in 2021.[20]