Agricultural
LAW FIRM

If you haven’t worked in agriculture, it’s easy to miss what keeps an operation alive—and what can quietly kill it.

 

Growing up on a farm, Kole heard the same complaint again and again: lawyers didn’t truly understand agriculture. Good intentions turned into forced sales and fractured families, because for asset-rich, cash-poor farm households, “fair” isn’t always “equal.” When an engine failure and plane crash ended his dream career of farming and flying, he chose to become the solution.

 

At Midwest Ag Law, our roots in agriculture run deep. Our founder, Kole Pederson, grew up on a family crop farm where work wasn’t just a job — it was a way of life. By 12, he was balancing homeschooling with full-time farm work. He later earned degrees in Agronomy, Ag Business, Ag Systems Management, and Aviation at the University of Minnesota Crookston, and then taught precision agriculture there.

 

In 2014, Kole became an aerial applicator, logging hundreds of hours supporting the industry he loved. Then in 2018, an engine failure led to a serious crash and months of recovery. Told that flying and farming were over, he redirected his life to protect farm families through law.

 

Kole attended Drake University Law School, known for its agricultural law focus, and later served as Director of Environmental & Regulatory Affairs at Nebraska Farm Bureau. The same frustrations he’d seen since childhood kept showing up:

 

1. Time: Planting, feeding, and harvest don’t pause for office visits.

2. Fees: Hourly billing adds anxiety, right when families need certainty.

3. Fit: Too many plans treat farms like suburbs, and “equal” like “fair.”​

 

Kole built Midwest Ag Law to solve those problems.

 

We offer flat fees and transparent pricing — no hourly billing, no surprises. We bring the meetings to you — whether it’s in the shop, the barn, or over a video chat from a tractor cab. And because we are farmers, we design plans that work on paper and in the field to keep the operation intact while treating everyone fairly.

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How our plans protect both the farm and the family:

• Fair-Not-Equal Heir Plan — We define what “fair” means in an asset-rich, cash-poor reality so the operator isn’t crushed and off-farm kids are respected.

• Operator-First Structures — Trusts that rent land back to the operator, with options-to-purchase to prevent surprise auctions and keep decisions local.

• Balance Without Breaking Cash Flow — Life insurance or off-farm assets to equalize without forcing a sale.

• Title & Beneficiary Alignment — Deeds, entities, POD/TOD, accounts, and leases aligned so nothing bypasses the plan.

• Lender/CPA Coordination — Built with your financing and tax reality in mind, not against it.

• Funding Support — We don’t abandon clients after the signing; we help put the plan in place so it actually works when it’s needed.

 

Result: The ground stays in the family. Planting and harvest stay on schedule. Everyone knows where they stand.