“So, God Made a Farmer” And His Lawyer

Agriculture.

An industry that most people think of as just the countless hours spent in a field or on a tractor by a hard-working farmer just trying to make a living.

Farming is the foundational puzzle piece to agriculture, but to keep the foundation stable, there is a certain field within agriculture that keeps farmers and the environment stable:

Agricultural Law.

Agricultural Law has many branches and deals with things such as, but not limited to, seed, water, and pesticide use; land zoning and usage; all issues dealing with the environment; genetic modification of crops; and the overall protection of agricultural economic stability and farmers’ rights.

John Allen Nichols, J.D., is on the Agricultural Council for the Alabama Farmers Federation (ALFA) and deals with these issues and more as a part of his daily life within his job.

Nichols is a 2016 graduate of Auburn University’s College of Agriculture. After graduating, he attended graduate school at Thomas Goode Jones School of Law where he obtained and graduated with his Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 2019.

Nichols was a part of several clubs during his time at Auburn including the Block and Bridle Club, the Poultry Science Club, Ag Ambassadors, an Ag Council Representative, and the Ag Alumni Mentoring Program. He was also a student employee with Ag Land and Resource Management as well as with the College of Agriculture at Auburn and was an intern with the National Turkey Federation.

But Nichols began his journey into agriculture in a unique way.

He states, “I started out as Poultry Science Pre-Vet, because I actually thought I was going to go to dental school, and midway through I actually changed over and finished in Poultry Science Production.”

During his junior year, Nichols participated in the Ag Mentoring Program at Auburn where he claims to have met one of his biggest professional influences, Brian Hardin, who works in Governmental Affairs with ALFA.

Nichols said, “Law school really was not on my radar at that point. I knew that I did not want to go to dental school and that I wanted to work in the Ag industry, but where I wanted to work, I had not really worked out yet.”

He continued saying that Hardin was the one who asked him if he’d ever thought about law school and he really had not, but that he chose to take Hardin’s advice and advance on to law school.

Nichols contacted Hardin halfway through his first year in law school about where he should intern and that’s when Hardin asked if he would come and intern at ALFA.

“The rest is kind of history,” said Nichols.

“History” is his current job as an Ag Councilperson for ALFA, which Nichols says he thoroughly enjoys and is his dream job.

When asked, Nichols divided his duties within his job into a trifold of sorts: his legislative duties, his in-house counsel duties, and his organizational duties.

During legislative sessions in the spring, Nichols assists the state lobbying team by helping them research and “dig-in” to the legal topics at hand as well as reading and writing legislation. He said that often they know what matters they need to research and discuss ahead of time, but sometimes certain issues “come up on the fly as legislators introduce legislation.”

He says they also read and monitor regulations from administrative boards and commissions.

“If there is a regulation that we think may negatively affect our farmers, we do our best to get that amended in a way that's more friendly to them,” states Nichols.

Another side of his job are his ‘typical’ in-house counsel duties as a part of ALFA.

Someone who handles such duties is defined as “any type of attorney that's in-house for a corporation dealing with bylaws and corporate laws,” said Nichols.

ALFA is a nonprofit organization, so he also tags nonprofit laws onto that as well. This includes things such as contracts or any type of agreements in which he may help review, negotiate, and draft.

The third subcategory Nichols uses to classify his job is his organizational duties.

ALFA is made up of 67 independent, autonomous county boards which means each is separate and in need of their own bylaws and officers.

Nichols says he helps make sure that each county board’s bylaws are where they need to be and helps them introduce policies when and where they are needed.

An important aspect about Nichol’s job to understand is that he himself cannot lobby nor give personal legal advice.

He says he loves connecting with their members and answering their questions about different aspects of their operations but also says it can lead to some “murky water” because “I cannot be their personal attorney, I cannot give them legal advice individually, but I can educate them about what the law says.”

He will oftentimes refer them to an attorney in their area that can help them out when legal advice is needed, since he himself cannot legally or ethically give it himself.

Near the end of the interview with Nichols, the question “What advice would you give an undergraduate?” was posed.

Nichols states that the advice he usually gives students is, “Be comfortable when you finish college, and you get your first job, for it not to be your dream job. Be ready to work somewhere for a little while, gain some experience and let that be your steppingstone to the next thing.”

To end, Nichols stated he believes careers in agriculture are the foundation to a healthy and functioning world.

“What is common to everyone on the planet is that we all have to eat. I know that is overstated and said over and over again, but there is no industry vital to life the way agriculture is. We have got to have food.”

Nichols continues by saying, “It’s a big industry, there’s a lot of places to fit in, but I think it gets overlooked a lot of times and its importance is oftentimes neglected.