The Good Stuff: A Conversation with Ag Lawyer and Consultant, Chelsea Good

Join us on this episode as Amanda Perry Carl chats with agricultural attorney, advocate, and consultant, Chelsea Good, owner of Good & Associates in Kansas.  In this episode, we discuss local, state, and Federal issues facing agriculture, hot topics in the livestock industry, including New World screwworm, classic country music, and so much more!

With Chelsea's experience in the livestock industry, you are sure to gain some valuable knowledge in this episode!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:10

To help our sort of industry survive. Our sort of space to eat and you appreciate our agreers. This podcast is for you. If you are interested in protecting and preserving our agricultural heritage, lands, and way of life, then come join us in the legal field and see what's growing on. Welcome to another edition of uh the Legal Field Podcast. My name is Amanda Carl, and I am your podcast host, and I am so excited to welcome today's guest to the podcast, a fellow agricultural lawyer from a different part of the country, Chelsea Good. Chelsea is the owner of Good and Associates, an agricultural consulting and advocacy firm in Kansas. So welcome, Chelsea.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Thanks so much for having me on, Amanda. I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Same here. I think it'll be really exciting to hear about, you know, our different backgrounds and things, how things are maybe a little different in different parts of the country, but how a lot of our issues really are some of the same issues. For sure. And I'm always excited to get to know other ag lawyers and advocates. Um I think what we do is such a niche practice and is so critical for the survival of this industry that we love so much.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Absolutely. Um it's you know, something I'm really passionate about.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

And you've had a really incredible career taking that passion. And I know our listeners would love to hear a little bit about your background, even before we get rolling very much in the podcast and some of the things maybe that you've worked on. Can you give our listeners a little primer on who you are and maybe a bit of your background and how your passion for this industry began?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Oh, I would love to. Um, I think it's in my blood. Um, you know, I was kind of born into it. Um, my dad, um, Kevin Good works at Cattlefax, he's a livestock market economist, um, starting to stair step towards retirement, not full-time anymore. Um, but that's the job he took out of college. Um, and so I was born in Parker, Colorado to a livestock market economist. Um, and you know, by the time I was eight, it was mom and dad's goal that we would have acreage so I could show. Um, I think they got that done when I was six. So the place I grew up on, you know, had a barn and enough space for me to have cattle and um, you know, hogs and unfortunately some sheep and goats, um, kind of anything I wanted to show that wasn't horses was um eligible. And um dad grew up actually on a cow calf operation in Michigan. So um, grandpa good, Fred good, um, who actually just passed away last year at 101, which I think is pretty phenomenal legacy. Um that's yeah, it just just amazing. Um, grandma and grandpa lived on the farm until um I think she was ninety five or six, and he was ninety-nine when they they stopped living on the farm by themselves.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

What an incredible story. You know, I think it's it's really a testament probably to their tough genes and their tenacity to be able to stay there on their own until that part that point in life. It's a pun, but I've got good genes, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

There's a lot to be said there.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, and there's actually kind of a fun tie-in here. Um, so I went I named my firm that I launched last July, Gooden Associates, um, had a couple different reasons. Um, you know, I have a strong livestock marketing background, and it kind of sounds like it could be like a sale management firm. Obviously, I'm an attorney, it sounds like it could be a law firm. In reality, it's kind of neither in both. Um, but the the thing that was like, man, this is absolutely what I have to name it, is Grandpa Good had a club calf sale that he called Gooden Associates. And um it was his sale, but then he would bring in other producers and they would have offerings from them as well. And that's kind of the way my business works that I'm a sole proprietor, but I've got a lot of collaborators um that will either subcontract with me or, you know, from a legal perspective, sometimes I'll do some cross-referrals. Um, and so, you know, my business model is similar to the way he did his club calf sale. And it was fun to get to kind of give a nod to him and that legacy and what I chose to name the business.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

What an incredible way to carry on that legacy and to keep that family legacy alive. You know, I think that that so often, and we can talk about this a little bit more later, too, but so often there aren't a whole lot of lawyers who have that agricultural background and legacy. And I love that nod to your family's agricultural legacy in the name of your law firm.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Well, it it remind me, Amanda, you're a country music person, right? I am huge country, old country music. Yes, uh classic country, real country. So I'll take it a step further. Um, Grandpa had a couple brothers. Um, Don Good would be kind of the best known in Kansas. He was the animal science department chair for a long time. He actually picked the first crossbred steer to win a major international show. Um, it was named Conico, it was a Shar cross that he picked to win the Chicago in 1969 and really changed a lot of people's opinions on crossbreeding. Um, but grandpa had another brother, his brother Paul, who was a wonderful livestock auctioneer. And Paul actually used to run around with Leroy Van Dyck. Oh, how incredible. Oh yeah. So that song, The Auctioneer, Leroy's most famous song, there was a family rumor that that song was about Great Uncle Paul. Um, it wasn't, it was about Ray Sims, but um I actually, just like a month or so ago, woke up one day and I was like, you know, I think Leroy Van Dyke's still alive, and I wonder if he would talk to me. And I looked him up, and he is 96, and I found his wife's email and I emailed her, and I actually had like an hour-long conversation with Leroy Van Dyke a couple weeks ago about my great uncle that he knew really well, and also my grandpa, who he knew. What a cool story.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Now that he confirmed who the song was about.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

It was definitely about Ray Sims, who's a cousin of his. Um, and then the other family rumor that I had to dispel, um, my cousin Adam Goodcotton, his story was always like, Yeah, it's about Ray Sims, but Leroy Van Dyke and Paul Good were on a plane together, and Paul helped write the song. Um, turns out Leroy wrote the song in Korea. It was actually a really cool story. He thinks the song wrote itself. He said that like the lyrics just kept coming to him when he was serving in Korea, and eventually he wrote them down.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

You know, I love these family stories sometimes, and sometimes you you want them to be true, and sometimes you think, man, I hope this isn't true. We have one of the stories in our family. Um, we mentioned before we got on the podcast, my family's been in Central Florida since 1823 before, you know, air conditioner and refrigeration. And I often wonder, you know, what the heck they were doing here. But, you know, the the old story about our family is that the man that our little hometown was named after, Peter Boyer Perry, our town was named Pedro, should have been Pedro in Spanish. The legend was he was the first um American to raise the American flag in Mexico during the Mexican-American War.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Who knows? Probably no truth to that story, but that's our family story.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Run with it, right? That's too good to not be true.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Right. So I absolutely understand these family stories and legacies that may or may not be true, but they they carry on from generation to generation, and it's really fun to carry some of these things on.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, it's funny on my mom's side, my grandpa Bach, um, who was a little wild, um, he loved talking about how we had Indian blood, right? And you know, we were part Indian Indian. Um, and then DNA tests and 23andMe came along, and that it's a bold-faced lie. We're German and Irish. Um, but according to Grandpa Bach, there's Indian blood in there somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

You know, maybe the 23andM was wrong. We'll we'll just leave it at that. Maybe it's I mean, how would they know? Right. Maybe it was wrong. So you have this amazing passion, you know, for ag and an incredible background in this industry, which is really amazing. What inspired you to go to law school and continue this passion of advocating for this industry with a law degree?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

So I think two things. Um, the first thing was the decision that the cattle sector is where I belonged. Um, and that probably, if if it didn't happen earlier, was solidified at least by high school. Um, I had the privilege of being selected as a national beef ambassador. I got sent to my first um cattle industry convention, I think it was in Phoenix, and there was all of these cowboys from different parts of the US arguing about policy and and you know how something would affect a cattle feeder versus a stalker versus a cow calf guy. And I was just like, if I do nothing else in my entire life, I would be happy sitting in this room arguing with these men and women and arguing on their behalf. Like I just knew that the cattle sector was for me, the people were for me, and and there was something about policy that was pretty special. Um the decision to go to law school happened a little later, probably mid-college. Um, you know, dad planted the seam or seed early. He said, you know, I liked to do, yeah, I like to argue too much to be anything but a lawyer, right? Um, but I didn't think I wanted to be a litigator. Or I I would have loved to be a litigator if I could pick the cases and they were all about cattle, but that's not how being a litigator works. So it wasn't for me, right? I think I knew I wanted policy, but I I developed this passion in college for advocacy as well. And, you know, in policy, we're advocating on behalf of producers to decision makers, but it was my opinion, and and just for context, I'm in undergrad, um, judging livestock at Butler 04 to 06, um, finishing up at K-State 06 to 08. And, you know, social media was pretty new. Like literally, Facebook. When I first got Facebook, you had to belong to a college that it got released at. And so I was like, the worst two weeks of my life were when K-State had Facebook already, but because I was at Butler, I didn't yet. Um, right. So, you know, an interesting time in social media, an interesting time in people saying, you know, we're gonna start to use the internet to connect people, to talk about things with people that come from different viewpoints. And, you know, Chipotle at the time was doing some things where they talked about conventionally raised meat in ways that I thought was unfair. And so, you know, I had this additional passion kind of be lighted about advocating to consumers and um really even more so than advocating to consumers, creating ways to have real conversation with consumers where we both listen to them and also um share with them about our experiences. And this was pretty new at that point in time, right? And so I have these dual passions. I know it's cattle sector, I know it's policy, but maybe there's also something here on communications that that's speaking to me as well. I loved K-State. Um, if anybody is looking at colleges, go to Manhattan, Kansas and consider Kansas State University. It was a phenomenal place for me. Um, so phenomenal that I wasn't quite ready to leave after two years. So I actually stayed an extra year and got a master's in um persuasion, communication studies. Um, I did thesis research on rural beef producers and talking to urban consumers and whether data and numbers was more persuasive or stories and narratives. And um found what I kind of expected, and that was if you're talking to a broad audience, it really takes a blend of both. And well, I wasn't surprised by that. I think that we're in such a data-driven industry that there were cattlemen out there and women that needed to see the data to learn that just data is not a lot, not enough for a lot of people, and they need to tell the story as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Absolutely. And I think what you say there is so important about that time. You know, I think when all this social media and all these things were happening, I often say that as agriculture as a whole, all across all industries, we got a little bit behind in getting our message out there and communicating because I think so often in our industry, we know we're doing great things. You know, our farmers and ranchers know that they're stewards of the land, that they're doing all these things, and they just assume everybody knows. And I think in some ways, in those early days, we let the mommy bloggers and some of the others get ahead of the narrative. And then, you know, we've kind of had to play catch up. And I love to hear that you were, you know, kind of on the forefront trying to get that message across because I think it is so important. People need to hear our stories, they need to hear and they want to hear about the farmers and ranchers that are out there producing their food because they hear so much noise from the some of the other groups about factory farming and some of these buzzwords that just really aren't true.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Absolutely. Um, I totally agree with that. And so that that kind of lit, you know, a different passion there. Um, and so I um really, you know, had a great experience in that master's program. Probably need to give Dr. Dan Thompson some credit. He ran the K-State Beef Cattle Institute at that point in time, and so um he found funding for that and was very supportive and made it so that even though I was not in the College of AG, I really, you know, was having an ag-based conversation and able to do ag based research that was funded. Um I did just a year to get my master's, which was a little wild, but um, I think you'll find I like doing a lot really quickly. Um probably don't have any other pace. And so um I um after that, um, that's when I chose to go to law school. And you know, dad was encouraging, and and mom, yeah, my whole family was very encouraging. Um, and dad even said, you know, when I was in undergrad and a little bit bored and not not challenged enough, he said, you know, stick it out. And, you know, if you if you do well in undergrad and you get to law school, we'll help you pay for law school, which is, you know, amazing to have that family support. Lots of people don't, right? Absolutely. And um I have this day that I will never forget. Uh Todd Johnson was leading the Kansas Beef Council at the time, and um we had the very first ever Masters of Beef Advocacy training at K-State. Todd through the Beef Council, me through um doing some work for Dr. Dan and the Beef Cattle Institute and this group we'd set up called Um Food for Thought, we had the very first ever training for um the um Masters of Beef Advocacy. Darren Williams came out and did it. He didn't even have all of the modules done yet. I mean, we were, you know, aggressive. Well, that same day, Washburn, where I ended up going to law school, invited me to do some interviews um for a scholarship. And so I had to leave in the middle of the day to go interview for scholarship. And on the way home, I got a call to my cell phone and said, you know, congratulations, Chelsea. We have one full ride plus stipend. We offer a year and we want to offer it to you. That is awesome. Uh law school is huge. Yeah. More more awesome than that was the call I made to my dad, where I said, Hey, thank you so much for being willing to support me going to law school. I'm not gonna need it. Um, that was just like, I hope he remembers that phone call the same way I do, because I was just so proud, right? That all of my hard work had paid off and that people were willing to invest in me, and that like I didn't need his funds to make law school happen. I was gonna be able to do it um in another way. And then to later on, um, National Cattleman's Foundation selected me weeks after that to receive a WD FAR scholar, which was also life-changing. I mean, I think that was $12,000 or $15,000 at a point in time where that felt like a million dollars. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Especially when you're a law student and you know that money goes a long way in to not have to come out with student loan debts or to be able to say to your father, look, I can take care of this on my own. That's huge. It was.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

I then had to call him not long thereafter because um I decided that I was gonna buy a house because my best friend Christy Gable was buying a house. She had a job, she could afford a house, right? I just decided if Christy gets to buy a house, I get to buy a house. Um and so I, you know, got pre-approved for the loan and found the house and it was super cheap. And there was a first-time home buyer tax credit, and everything was great until they go to you know, verify my employment. And my employer logically says, Well, yeah, she works for us, but she won't in a month when she goes to law school. And apparently that changed the lender's risk analysis on me. So I did have to call dad and ask him to co-sign that loan.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

But you had already taken care of law school, so that was a little stressed.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I did, and he never had to do anything but co-sign. And then when I refinanced a couple years later, I took him off of it. Um, but you know, still needed dad just in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, it's sometimes it's always good to still need your dad a little bit. I still make phone calls to mine all the time to ask all kinds of questions.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

For sure. I mean, he is my favorite sounding board, right? And like now this sounds like a Kevin Good fan show, which was not anything I wrote down in my notes, but is a lot of my background, right? Like that's I think that passion came through both of my parents, but in different ways. You know, mom is a very passionate human. Her passion is for people and connection and and personality is where mom and I are similar, interests is where dad and I are similar.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

That's incredible. So you you graduated from law school then, you know, and then have had a really cool, I think, career since then. Um, and now you've started your own practice. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your career to this point and then starting your own firm and what helped you make that decision? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

So um career kind of jump started a little bit during law school. Um, I have a mentor, Jackie McClaskey, who believes people that are young can do big things, and she picked me as one of those people. And so Jackie actually invited me to um interview and become the communications director for the Kansas Department of Agriculture while I was in law school, which was a little wild to take a full-time job midway through law school, but it worked great. Um, it was phenomenal. I learned so much. So I did that for a couple of years, um, graduated and took the bar. And so when I passed the bar, I told Jackie and the crew at KDA, like, I've loved this job, but I became an attorney on purpose. Like, I think that I need to um see that out. I need to um, you know, have an opportunity to see if I if I, you know, like practicing law. And Jackie's like, you don't like practicing law. And I'm like, you might be right, but I uh I need to feel that, right? And so I actually transferred to the legal team at the Kansas Department of Ag. So stayed with KDA, but became an attorney, focused on um Animal Health Division, which was a great fit, um, worked with Dr. Bill Bray on the state vet, learned a lot. Um, I think that I um, you know, loved pieces of it. I loved working on policy, I hated you being a regulator. And so a couple years after that, or maybe even just a year after that, I started started to think, you know, what's next? And do I need to go to DC? Is that's the only way you really can do these things, blah, blah, blah. Um, and so I'm thinking about going to DC. And um I got a call from a couple people that said, Hey, you know, your name is getting talked about for this livestock marketing association, vice president of government and industry affairs job. You should really consider it. Um, and I'd actually seen the posting. I'd sent it to Christy, my best friend, and we had agreed that they wouldn't consider me because I was so green, right? But enough people said my name to Mark Mackey, the CEO at the time, that Mark said, let's bring her in and talk to her. Um, and so I um I ended up um interviewing and getting the job with LMA, which is was a huge blessing. That was 2013. I moved to Kansas City, led the government affairs and legal team for LMA for about 12 and a half years. Um, did great run, did really cool things. I'd love to talk about dealer statutory. Trust and some of the big wins we had for the sale barns in that role. But um this time last year, I started to think um, you know, I was about to turn 40. I've always considered myself a little bit of an entrepreneur. I'll I I told my husband at one point when we were dating that I wanted to be a serial entrepreneur when I grew up. And he just looked at me and he goes, Chelsea, why don't you start with one? Which is like so logical. And also the role my husband has in my life, right? That um he is the oak tree to my firecracker.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Um, and so my first business venture was with my sister-in-law. We started a greeting card company, Good One Card Co, in 2024. And then 2025 is when I did the real thing, and I went out on my own July of last year and started my own agriculture advocacy and consulting firm. Um, kept Livestock Marketing Association as a client, which was a big blessing to be able to continue to work with some of those people that I'd developed good relationships with and so much subject matter expertise around and kind of gave me a little cushion to launch. Um, I'm not quite a year in, but I hope to retire from this job. I love getting to work with so many cool clients on cool projects and just being in the heat of the fire every day. That's what I was built for.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

And I think we probably are very similar in that respect. Um, I'm about a year and a half into my own practice after being in law firms and then in-house counsel for almost 10 years. And it's while those were amazing, it's also really wonderful and a great feeling to be able to assist more of our producers, growers, associations. Um, you know, particularly for me, it's the small and mid-sized ones that may not be able to afford the inside, the in-house council or you know, advocacy partner, but it's so nice to be able to help a broad range of clients in in your own practice. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

So oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna ask like, do you focus on legal proper or do you have a variety of things that you like to do?

SPEAKER_01 24:07

I do a lot of work on legal proper, but I also help um also in in an advocacy role in other ways as well. I also provide fractional general counsel services for some small to mid-size um growers and producers that need that that little bit of you know in-house general counsel, but maybe only want five hours a week or 10 hours a month, so that they have that general counsel guidance and benefit. I like to say the benefits of general counsel without having to pay the benefits is you know you don't have to pay me insurance, you don't have to pay 401k match on your general counsel, but you don't have to pay me the benefits. And so I spend a lot of my time dealing with a lot of state and local issues as well. Um and that that was kind of leads to one of our questions we had here. I spend a lot of time lately, I find, dealing with local governments. Um, a lot of times where they're not properly following some of the state laws that our legislature has been so great to implement to assist farmers and ranchers, whether it be our state farm bill or um some of our right to farm laws that the state legislature has put on the books. And a lot of times we have some local governments who may not be applying those. And I feel over the last six months I've been spending a lot of time there. Do you find yourself in your advocacy and practice dealing a lot at the state, local, or federal level more, or a combination thereof? I'm really a pretty nice blend, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Um, you know, when I was at LNA, I was our federally registered lobbyist. So I know the ag committees federally well, I know USDA well. So that's been a natural bucket. I have started working on some more state issues as well. Kansas is natural for me because Topeka is an hour from Kansas City, and I know the Kansas. So I worked for Modern Ag Alliance in the Topeka State House this year. That was a pesticide labeling issue. That was a lot of fun. And then honestly, um some of my clients, it's you know, federal or state or local. What where I see the common thread is it's all only ag and it's often cattle sector. So, you know, for example, North Dakota Livestock Alliance is a client that's a state client in another part of the country. Um, but they're they're the group that encourages new dairies and and and uh hog operations to to relocate or expand in North Dakota, they were experiencing some public pushback, and so they really wanted help messaging and with a public perception campaign, honestly, you know, targeted to rural and urban communities in North Dakota that just don't understand how good it is to add animal ag to the state. Well, you know, I'm not a North Dakotan, but as both a communicator and a um advocate, I was tailor-made for that project, right? And so um I think that that's one thing that I'm noticing is, you know, it's not necessarily I'm best at federal or state or local. I'm best at issues I care about and issues that involve ag and especially the cattle sector. And we're not as international, kind of. I mean, the Mexico border is is closed right now to uh feeder cattle imports, and that is having just a disastrous effect on cattle feeders, not just in the south, but across the United States. It is really difficult to make break-evens work right now in cattle feeding because we're down, you know, seven figures of cattle that used to be imported from Mexico, fed out here, quality product um that that we're just missing right now.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

And for any of our listeners who may not understand the why, can you explain a little bit of the why as became the border on that respect?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

You know, screw worm was the reason why, and screw worm is a flesh-eating um fly um that larvae like gets into um wounds, but could even get into like eyes and things like that. So it's a bad deal. For a long time, it was further south and it started to migrate a little bit further north into Mexico. And so we got concerned as the United States and chose to close that border to protect our herd from screw worm. I think USDA has done a great job of really ramping up some of our protection since then. Um, they've come up with some good protocols of like if we were to import cattle, there would be a wait period, there'd be ivermectin, there'd be visual inspection, there'd be traceability. So I think we we've figured out the science that we could import cattle safely again, especially as we're ramping up. And when I say we, I mean the United States is really investing in sterile fly technology and things like that. Um now it's political, right? Now it's, you know, it's been closed, we've adjusted. What are the politics of reopening? My personal perspective, and I'm not speaking for a client, I'm just speaking for myself, is we as a US cattle sector and a US people cannot afford to keep this border closed because what is actively happening is Mexico is working on their cattle feeding and packing capacity right now, and they are ramping up the ability to instead of send us feeder cattle, we have the opportunity on the US side to add value. And oh, by the way, pay the Mexican producer way more for those feeder cattle than they're worth on the other side of the border. So everybody wins. What's happening now instead is they might get fed out and killed in Mexico. We'll import them as boxed beef rather than live animals, that limits opportunity for U.S. producers, that reduces our food security, in my perspective, you know, as Americans, and that's concerning. And then we're also in this place where we're talking about beef prices, and I grant that they are high. Um, they're high because demand is high, they're high because supply is low. Well, then we now have this policy that's making supply even lower. If there's one thing that President Trump and Secretary Rollins could do, and they're thinking about it and they're being very thoughtful, um, and I hope they're gonna make this decision soon. But if there's one thing they could do to really help reduce beef prices in the short term, it would be allowing regulated import of feeder cattle from Mexico again.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

And I appreciate you providing that background because I think there are a lot of folks who may not be in the cattle industry, but maybe in the ag industry who don't know what's going on with the screw worm issue right now, or maybe even that it's an issue. I know sometimes we take for granted that everybody knows every issue that's going on in our industry, but sometimes across commodities, it's it's really a challenge to keep up with everything. Um so thanks for providing that perspective too. And I would agree with you. And I think that, you know, the American consumer, and and we know the average American consumer doesn't really pay attention to our industry. They don't pay attention to where our food comes from. And then suddenly when something arises, then there's a lot of opinions on things, but maybe not a lot of education on some of the issues that are actually going on. And I think it's so important, kind of to go back to what we talked about earlier, that we're out there educating and letting folks know about what is going on, what should be done, what is being done, and sometimes the policy decisions behind that or the science behind it, the reasons behind it, um, and how it will affect our markets for sure. Now, in your in your career, whether it was with LMA or anything that you've done over the last you know year or almost a year since you've been on your own, do you have any crazy, interesting war stories? You know, in the world, the legal world and then the world of ag, there's always interesting stories. There's always wild and crazy things. Some are inspiring that kind of keep us going on a daily basis to do what we do, and some are just crazy. Um, do you have any interesting war stories to share?

SPEAKER_00 32:17

I do. Um, let me pause momentarily to think about how shareable some of these are. Um, I'll give some examples. Um, people, especially in the legal field, are just fascinating, fascinated by how little documentation cattle buyers and sellers use in their transactions and how much trust there is. Millions of dollars are leaving sale barns every day without checks in hand. And those sale barns, if they never get a check, they'll have to pay for those livestock still. So, boy, that's a huge benefit that sale barns offer producers, a guarantee of a good check. That I had no idea the amount of risk there. And so I got wild calls while at LMA about like, hey, this this man took these cattle, that he bought them at the sale, he took them, his check balanced, I know where the cattle is, uh I'm gonna hitch up my gooseneck and I'm gonna go get them. And um, I had like a horrible experience as an attorney telling those people, actually, technically, if that uh buyer of cattle had a lender, which most people do, and they had a lien on after acquired cattle, even though that check bounced, um those cattle aren't yours anymore. They're they're those lenders. That lender has a you know a priority interest in those cattle. That is actually no longer the law. Um, I worked really hard with LMA leadership and you know, other you know, advocates in the cattle industry, and we were able to change that priority in the creation of a dealer statutory trust. But, you know, a lot of my crazy conversations dealt with, you know, livestock that weren't paid for and things we people would do to try and get livestock and money back. Um, and you know, just lack of documentation, where like I dealt with an issue where you know a sale barn sold and the deal was on a bar napkin, and I was just so impressed that they put anything in writing, right? Which sounds crazy, but that is just you know, this sector. We're we're handshake people. We probably are needing to evolve, uh, both in how we paper our deals and how we pay for our livestock, but um, it's a little fun to still get to live in the Wild West a little bit. Um, so that's kind of one bucket of stories, and there's lots of them. Another is, you know, LMA has a really cool benefit to their members, and LMA remains a client, you know, no longer work there, but still work with them and left some great colleagues behind. Uh, Jared Settles, the general counsel at LMA, is absolutely a rock star, fantastic human. And so one of the cool benefits for LMA members is you have up to 10 hours of market related legal work where you can call LMA and ask any market-related business questions. So they're small businesses. Some of those end up being like business questions, right? Um I had one. We were kind of between gen councils. Ernie Van Hooser had retired. I was working on recruiting Jara, but um hadn't got her hired quite yet. And so I was doing some of those calls from members, and I had a guy from the Southeast call and he said, Oh, Miss Chelsea, you know, I'm not urgent. We don't need to talk right now. Let's catch me whenever. And I'm like, No, dear, you have me now, right? Like, what's up? And they're like, Well, I don't think it's a big deal. I mean, you probably you're too busy to be talking to me. And I'm like, You called for a reason. What's going on? Well, we had a man fall through the skylight this morning. He's fine, he's fine. I mean, he lost an eye and you know, broke some ribs, but he'll he'll be out of the hospital like this week. Now I wouldn't need to tell anybody about that, would I?

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

And I'm like, okay, um, we're gonna talk about OSHA and uh mandatory reporting. And I'm so glad we're talking right now because you only have so many hours to report this to OSHA. Yeah, yeah, you you do need to be talking to me, right? And so just some things like that were just like, and I was a pretty green attorney at that moment where I was like, I just did not envision my career going in a place where like someone falling through a skylight was my problem. And oh, by the way, what's a man doing on the roof? And also, why does your sale barn have a skylight? Like, like it's how many badly questions, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:36

You know, I feel like um to your your point about lack of documentation, I feel like our agricultural industry as a whole is a very and has always been a very trusting handshake. You're a man and a woman of your word. And a lot of those things have to eventually evolve because we don't really live in that world anymore in a lot of aspects, because there are some people that are not good, you know, good on their promises. And I think that's a really interesting part of what I do is, you know, too often, and I'm sure you've seen this, you go to traditional law firms and not to not traditional law firms, but they'll you'll need a contract and it's 25 pages. And that gets presented to someone in our industry and it is just immediately balked at. So you've got to craft agreements when needed to have everything that's needed, but not be overlawyer, not be too, you know, too done up because nobody wants to sign a 25-page agreement when you know what a four-pager can do.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

So I'm doing that work for some clients. Like um, I work with Rare Food Comes From, um, and they've kind of grown by acquisition. They do a lot of process verification for cattle and other food. So they own Validus, they own IMI Global, and all of these different different companies came with their own contracts with all these terms. And, you know, they work with producers that don't like signing a big contract. So part of my scope of work with them is just like we want to create a master agreement that a producer can read and understand what it says, but is still legally protective, and you don't have to flip a page, or if you do, it's just a front and back. Um, that's doable. Like, like the one of the biggest um compliments I ever received, Ernie Van Hooser, one of my favorite people and mentors who who was former Gen Counsel of LMA and did a lot of training of me on Packers and Stockyards Act. Early on, he said, Chelsea, you don't write like an attorney, and that's a compliment. Absolutely. I want my writing to be accessible. Actually, I'll take it a step back. Um, writing is one of my favorite things to do. I wrote for certified Angus Beef in college, and Steve Soother um showed me where on Word you can go and you can find out what the grade level of your writing is. And he told me, don't turn in a story that's not fifth grade reading level or below. And that's not because I think producers are stupid, but it's because I think they're busy. And I want our reading to be access writing to be accessible, and I want, you know, producers to be able to skim it and understand what we're trying to say. And that really stuck with me.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

I think too often lawyers try to prove their worth by using so many words or complicated words, and I think it's not necessary. And I think, especially in this industry, it just really is so important to have someone drafting your agreements that understands how to draft them for their audience. Again, a 25-page agreement is just not necessary, and it's just overlawyering for so many of these things. And people don't, our our growers don't want that, our producers don't want that.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

One of my favorite quips is I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one in.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Absolutely. It is often so much harder to shorten it instead of having sometimes when I was in uh doing complex business litigation, I would file things in federal court, or you know, we would have a page limitation in some of the state courts that we were filing in. And the hardest thing to do is have a pleading where you've got a page limitation and you've got to get everything you need to the court in front of them on this you know, 10-page limitation, eight-page limitation, whatever the case may be. So, yes, it is it is much harder to get it shortened and narrowed down and tailor it to your your link that you have to have.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Absolutely. And it's actually it's weird. We have weird hobbies, clearly. Like I like some weird stuff. Word efficiency is is literally a hobby of mine. I've got friends that'll send me a resume and they say it's two pages. I know you want it to be one page. What do I take out? Right. And um, oh man, that's one of my favorite hobbies.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

So I want to talk a little bit here. Um, I think we could talk all day. I think probably the two of us could talk for hours about what our experience is and what we do and share war stories. Can you give us a little um more detail on what your firm is doing now? Our listeners know what services you provide at your firm.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Um, for sure. So we've got four buckets that we provide. Um, the first bucket is government affairs, that's federal and state legislative and regulatory work. Um, that's kind of the most obvious. It's the one that people get their heads around the quickest. Um, my second bucket is what I call strategic communications. So um I do strategic planning. I'm doing strategic plan for the Kansas FFA Foundation, doing some mainstage speaking, like I'm speaking at um Animal Ag Alliance about how we can be more productive making our points on policy and some things like that. I honestly like feel like I am naturally very comfortable in difficult conversations. I believe that to be a gift and it's a gift to be used. And so I've got some companies that bring me in that just say, hey, we are not aligned, we fundamentally disagree about something, we cannot move forward until we reach alignment and we are in such disagreement we can't even figure out how to talk about it. Can you help us with that? Um, love that, right? And so that's kind of my strategic comms. Some of that's messaging work as well. Third bucket is what I call industry affairs. It might be my favorite bucket, and that is like just understanding the cattle sector and supply chains really well, um, understanding where a lot of the bodies are buried. And so I'll have companies or associations in the cattle sector that will just want me to build a coalition, right? You know, nobody's going to say yes to a policy proposal until most of the cattle groups are aligned. Help us do that. Um, or I've had a lot of fun starting to work with some ag tech startups that might not come from the cattle sector that think they've got a good idea or solution, but they don't know how to apply it to cattle and they don't know how to talk to cattle people. That's literally one of the only things I'm good at, right? And so um that's industry affairs. My fourth bucket's legal. Um I tell people to bring me all of their legal problems and I'll either do them or subcontract them or refer them, but I'll be able to get them taken care of by the right attorney. Um, personally, probably most of my legal practice is subject matter expert work in packers and stockyards or um animal disease traceability, animal ID.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

And I think that bucket is certainly important as well because I think so many folks in our industry um don't want to go to the big law firms and they want to come to somebody they trust that understands their industry and you understand their industry. And even if it's not something that you help them with, you can refer them or subcontract with someone who does understand, you know, that industry or whatever that their need is, and that you're gonna get them to someone who gets the ag industry.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

For sure. One of my best kind of network pieces here is the American Ag Law Association. I don't know if you've ever been to their annual CLE, but it is just the best networking, really cool humans. And um, you know, when someone's like, who should I work with in South Carolina? The first thing I think of is, well, who do I know from ALA from South Carolina, right? And so it's become a really good network for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Absolutely. I have attended a lot of their webinars and I'm hoping this year to get to the first one in person.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Please do. It's in Dallas. I think we've got really good tracks. I'm on their board, so I'm biased, right? But um, I think that they're gonna have really good educational experiences. And actually, um, AALA is not just for lawyers, even ag policy professionals that want to learn and grow, I'd encourage them to go to the annual convention as well. Well, hopefully I can make it this year and we can see each other there.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Yeah, that would be great. Now, before we get to some of our closing questions, which are our fun personal questions, is there anything else that we haven't talked about today that you want to share with our listeners, whether it's about what you currently do, your background, anything else?

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Oh, that's a great open-end question. Um, and I can't say no to those. Um I guess my encouragement would be whether it's me or a different policy professional or a different attorney or a different consultant, like if you are sitting here listening to this podcast and think, man, I've got this idea or this problem, and I don't know how to tackle it. And maybe Chelsea might be helpful or Amanda might be helpful, but I just don't know, and I don't want to waste their time, just pick up the phone and call, right? Because I am very good at telling people if I can be helpful to them, or if I can't, or maybe it's a bad idea. And that's some of what I do. I say, you know, hey, I have seen people try similar technology and application. Here's why that might not work, right? That here's who would be opposed to that. And if we were to work together, we would have to get through that. And I'll admit it's an uphill battle, you know. So I can I can have those conversations easily and want to, but if you wait too long to call, then the the problem can sometimes be too challenging by the time you make the call. And so that that's about me, but it's also about people like you, Amanda, and and people, you know, I I do a lot of um collaboration. JJ Jones with Cultivated Conversations is one of my best friends. My husband, Chad Tenpenny, owns Tenpenny Law. Um Jared Wareham with Horizon Venture Management does a lot of ag tech consulting, and we we find our skill sets to be complementary and and and like to use them together. So um yeah, that that would be my recommendation is like if you're if you're thinking you might want to talk to somebody like me, just just reach out. Um I I'll give my cell phone number. I mean 785 yeah 785-4800186 is my number. Probably text rather than call is best to give some context, and then we find a time that we can both make work and then we just talk.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

And if you have an employee fall through a skylight, do not wait a day to call.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yes. Yes, absolutely. That's a great example, right? I used to say all the time when I was talking to the LMA crowd, if you're thinking about calling Jara, you should have probably already called Jara. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Do not think too long, just call. Just make the call. Now, I always like to end my podcast with some personal questions. We've got a few. What is a fun fact about you that a lot of people who even know you might not know about you?

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Ooh, fun facts about me. I I love the golf, but that's not very it's very fun, but it's not a secret. Um I love old things, always have. I I believe I am an old soul. Like um in college, there was a group of families that would always come tailgate, and we'd look around, and it was like all the college kids are hanging out, all the moms are hanging out, and then they'd like Chelsea and the dads are like sitting over there talking about cows again, right? Like I've always been an old soul. Um, have an age gap with my husband. He's 13 years older. Many of my best girlfriends are, you know, 10, 15 years older. Um, I love old homes. Um, it just absolutely kills me that my current home was built in the 80s because that is much too young for my taste. I like homes that were built in the 1920s, uh, 19 teens, or older even better. Um, my dream is to turn an old limestone barn in the Flint Hills into a home. Um so I just I love old stuff. I antique, I go to estate auctions, um, I collect old things. Um, but here's the fun fact part. Um, as I've grown into the new business, I've been collecting more young things lately. Um, that, you know, I'm the person that used to always be around the old people. And now I'm starting to see people that are, you know, in their 20s and sometimes even younger, and thinking, man, they are really cool and interesting. I need to diversify my friend set or even my associate set. And so I actually employ some really high capacity college students and some people outside of college. Um, and that's been the most surprising fun thing about owning my business is getting to pour into young people, not only to, you know, utilize their time to free up some of my time, but to teach them stuff. I have loved um Taylor Tiffany's my my administrative associate. Um, Mike Owarum, um, who goes to West Texas AM, is um my accounting associate. I could not live without those two gals there, my right and left hand. And boy, that's awfully fun.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

And I think that's one of the hardest things sometimes about starting your own firm is learning what things to have someone else help you with and not try to take everything on yourself. And on the love of old things, if you haven't ever watched Jace Robertson from Duck Dynasty, his treasure hunting show, it's really cool. Like kids love it.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

I I watch no TV, um, but I would watch that TV. Because in another, like when people are like, what would you do differently? Like, you know, if you if you didn't have this career, if you weren't whatever, a corporate cowgirl, what would you be? I would 100% be a cattle feeder, which I am, um, just on a smaller scale. Like, but I would I would manage a feed yard in another life. I think that would be way cool. Um, my best friend manages a feed yard with her family. Um, my baby brother manages a little yard in Colorado. I just I've I tried to convince my college, you know, one of my really good guy friends in college to buy a feed yard with me. Um he told me he'd rather dig a hole, put all his money in it, and set it on fire. Um so he went home to Nevada to ranch and I went to law school. Um but you know, in another life, I'd be a cattle feeder or I'd be an antiques dealer. I would flip antiques, you know, and it's not as easy today as it used to be because people have the internet and they can figure out, oh, like a hen on nest is worth something and they don't give you the deals that they once did. Um, but there's some corollary between antique resale and cattle resale that I find to be intriguing.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

That's really awesome. Yes, it's harder now, especially when you go to estate sales or anything to find anything of value cheaper, like you used to be able to. You're probably everybody can look it up.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Yep, exactly. But you know, it's not another life. I'm good at arguing and thinking and talking in the cattle sector. So that is where I'm trying to focus my time.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Now, last question of the podcast. We both have a love of classic country music, and you know, modern country music is crap, in my opinion, with a couple of exceptions. Yep. What are your favorites classic country songs and who are your favorite artists?

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Um, without a doubt, my favorite artist goes back and forth between Merle Haggard and George Jones and always will. It's one of the two of them. Never saw George Jones live. Um, I broke my neck to see Merle Haggard live a couple times the last couple years of his life, and I'm so glad that I did. Um, I have two favorite songs. Um, and I'm I'm the vintage of obviously deader the better, right? Um also like I like a sad song. I just I just do. There's something cool about a sad song. Like the the songs that make you want to like break your glass bottle and slit your wrist with it, like those songs I love. So two of my favorite songs are gonna be sad country songs, uh Misery and Jin. And then um One You May Not Know, Good Year for the Roses. It's a George Jones song. I believe it to be the saddest song I've ever heard, and I do not understand why it didn't top the charts like some of the others did.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

Those are fantastic. And Merle is my top two. My top two are Merle, and then I have to go with the other George, George Strait, and then George Jones. My mom was the biggest fan of George Strait, and she passed away when I was 16. So George Strait's my top two, but Merle always, and when you go back and listen to Merle songs as an adult, and the older you get, the more relevant they are. I feel like every time, every day when I listen to Merle, his songs have more and more relevance to today's world, even probably they did when he wrote them and recorded them.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

They're timeless, they're absolutely timeless. So now I'm going to give two recommendations for younger, newer artists because I agree, three, I agree with you, there's not much good music out there anymore, but I do like some red dirt. So if people aren't familiar with Turnpike Troubadour, they should be. Oh yes. Um, and then newer, younger artists that are actually making some mainstream push. Zach Topp, who's actually from Washington State and his family owns Toppinish Livestock Commission. Um, and Zach Topp feels like he's straight out of the 80s. Like there's a wild internet rumor that he's Alan Jackson's long-lost son, um, which is not true. But um, Zach Topp's got a great voice. And then actually Ella Langley, um, I think she can do no wrong right now.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

It's funny, those are two of my uh current country artists that I actually listen to. Zach Topp, South of Insanity, is one of my favorite songs, and he wears his pearl snaps, and he's got he just has the look, the sound, the vibe, like you said, of 80s or early 90s country. And it takes me back listening to his music, you wouldn't think it was current music. It just gives you that nostalgia of taking you back.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Absolutely. Yeah. So those are those are good recommendations if anybody wants them.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Well, Chelsea, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. I feel like we could talk for hours. Um, and I really appreciate you being on. I appreciate you having me, Amanda. Lids talk for hours in Dallas. Absolutely. I'll see you there.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Thank you. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Thank you for listening to the Legal Field Podcast. For more content, please visit the Facebook page of Florida Ag Law or go to FloridaAglaw.com and join us next time on the Legal Field Podcast.