Kim Clarke was raised on tomatoes she grew up on a 500-acre farm near Grand Rapids, Mich., one of eight children whose family had worked the land for more than 100 years. Because she had the “black thumb” in the family, she said, she knew in middle school that farming wouldn’t be her future.
Clarke wanted to be a lawyer. “I noticed my family and others in the industry unable to find attorneys who understood farmers’ issues,” she said. Today, she is a partner at 140-attorney Varnum in Grand Rapids, Mich., with an agriculture-related practice dealing with labor disputes, immigration issues, regulatory control and more.
