Last year, Congress set aside $100 million to pay thousands of black farmers who, due to problems with their paperwork, were shut out of a massive discrimination settlement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The money wasn’t enough to cover every claim. But legislators dangled the possibility of eventually adding more dollars.
Today, with no guarantee of extra funding, lawyers are locked in a dispute over how to structure this second round of claims to produce the best financial result for the farmers and for themselves.
