A Lifetime of Work Leads Back to the Classroom

When Lula Cole first studied law, she found inspiration in a quote from Abraham Lincoln, "Once the mind is made up about a thing, the task's half done." She carried that philosophy throughout a long and illustrious law career and now uses it to guide her out of retirement and back into an active life of service.

"When you make up your mind about something, you can do it if you just stay focused," she said. "Life happens. Things come up that can detour our plan. Sometimes we have control of it, sometimes we don't. The main thing is not to give up."

A resident of Huntsville, Alabama, Cole's current focus is on returning to college and giving back to those in unserved communities. At age 65, she is enrolled in the LL.M. in Agricultural and Food Law degree program through the University of Arkansas School of Law. She plans to graduate from the master's study of laws related to food and sustainable agriculture by fall 2026.

When trying to decide where to go back to university to further her career, Cole researched her options and spoke with friends and colleagues. Many recommended the U of A.

"I'm grateful to be in the LL.M. program at the University of Arkansas," Cole said. "It enables me the flexibility to be at home, to garden, and still be active in the community. While working with USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) conducting a compliance review in Arkansas, I saw the passion that Extension faculty and staff had about what they do when it comes to food and agriculture. My review at Pine Bluff enabled me to see that things had changed when it came to farming.

 

Why Food Law Is Needed

Cole has always been passionate about giving back, even more so since her retirement. She sees the LL.M. program from the U of A as an opportunity to help those who cannot afford an attorney. Her background in employment law and a career with the USDA enables Cole to see many challenges that face underserved communities in accessing nutritious food and adopting sustainable living practices.

"Local, national and global food systems are in crisis," said Uche Ewelukwa, E.J. Ball Professor at the U of A School of Law and one of Cole's instructors. "Across the globe, very few law schools offer a comprehensive, complete and coherent curriculum on food and agricultural law, and very few law schools have taken on the role of leading nations and the global community in the important areas of food and agricultural law. The LL.M. Program in Agricultural and Food Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law is one program that is making a difference."

The LL.M. Program is unique for several reasons, Ewelukwa said. It has an expansive and fully integrated curriculum taught by nationally recognized scholars and practitioners and is designed specifically for LL.M. study. It employs flexible programming, with options to attend in-person or virtually, full- or part-time. Cole chose the fully online program.

The program offers generous graduate assistantship opportunities for qualifying students that cover tuition fees and provide a monthly stipend. And its outreach and experiential opportunities offer students the chance to gain hands-on experience while providing valuable resources to the community.

"With the growing food system crisis, it is imperative that law schools around the world offer opportunities for law students, lawyers and policymakers to receive training in every aspect of food and agricultural law," said Ewelukwa. "The LL.M. Program has the potential to impact lives, change the narrative around food insecurity, shape food laws and policies, address growing marginalization and discrimination in food and agricultural law regimes around the world, and radically transform food systems not only in the United States but across the globe."

This need is seconded by Susan Schneider, William H. Enfield Professor of Law and director of the LL.M. Program, who said in her June 2025 The Online Learner blog post, A Sign of the Times: Food Law and Policy, "With political change, economic uncertainty, shifting consumer concerns, and the impact of unmitigated climate change, it is difficult to predict exactly where the discipline of food law and policy will lead, but it is certain that the issues presented will only grow in importance. Now may be the time for attorneys to consider the opportunity to ‘practice what you eat.'"

 

From Cotton Fields to the Courtroom

The journey from her humble beginnings to studying for a master's degree at the U of A was no easy road for Cole. One of nine children, she learned the importance of education early on. Hungry for life outside her rural Mississippi Delta home, Cole avidly devoured images and concepts from magazines and books of the time, expanding her dreams and fueling her ambitions. Having lost her father in her early teens, she called her mother both an inspiration and a role model.

"My father transitioned [passed away] when I was 14, leaving my mother as a single parent," she remembered. "I didn't live in a household that encouraged me to go to school, but my mother was an entrepreneur. She took us to the cotton fields at 12 years old. My mother was always trying to make money some kind of way. So all of us do have that in our blood."

Cole herself raised three children—a son retired from the military, a daughter working in the medical field, and her youngest, a stay-at-home mom—and proudly boasts seven grandchildren. Having earned her BS from Alabama A&M University in 1990, then her juris doctorate from Miles Law School in May 2001, her career spans a lifetime of achievements. Cole held professional licenses in both Alabama and Virginia and received numerous awards for service and performance. She has extensive experience in the areas of mediation, employment law, compliance, probate and estate planning, and more.

When she first attended law school in the late 1990s, Cole drove four hours every day to and from the Birmingham campus to attend face-to-face classes, all while working full-time and raising her youngest daughter.

"I'm a first generation of higher education," Cole said. "Growing up in rural Mississippi, I laid the foundation and raised the bar for others. When we walk out our doors, everyone is looking at us, and we represent everyone connected to us. Thus, we are all an inspiration to others, giving each other hope, knowing that if you can achieve the unbelievable, the impossible, if someone ‘believes' for themselves that they can do something, they will."

 

Finding Purpose After Retirement

After retirement life left her unsatisfied, Cole accepted a staff attorney position in the Montgomery office of Legal Service Alabama, a law firm that provides free civil legal advocacy to low-income citizens. On Mondays, she makes the three-hour drive from Huntsville to Montgomery, then returns to Huntsville on weekends. Though it means managing two homes and driving long distances, Cole does it willingly, filling her weekdays assisting underserved communities with civil litigations. She also conducts wills, heirs' property, veterans and expungement outreach, sometimes on weekends, to educate the public and provide expungement and wills services to those who qualify for service, expungement being a court process to destroy or seal a criminal or juvenile record, treating the conviction as if it never happened and removing it from public view.

“I get a lot of housing issues, consumer law, and request for expungement assistance,” she said. “One of my current cases involves a judicial redemption where a grandmother failed to file for homestead exemption each year and lost the home at a tax sale. The statutory time to redeem has expired, but client remained an owner in-possession. We have filed a petition to redeem.”

Improved nutrition is another focus for Cole. She supports field-to-table services that emphasize buying local ingredients, reducing the time and distance between harvest and consumption. She also volunteers at local food banks and community gardens and educates communities, both urban and rural, on sustainable farming practices.

One additional area of interest for Cole concerns water conservation and safety. Having been raised in the Mississippi Delta, she is acutely aware of the water issues facing that region.

"Maybe I can learn something [from my classes] and get involved in that community to make change happen," she says. "A lot of places have that tradition [of healthy water management], but where I'm from, things haven't changed. I see it as an opportunity to go back into the communities and make a difference."

 

It's Not Just Elsewhere

Her time in the cotton fields served Cole well during her tenure working for NIFA where she performed compliance reviews at land-grant universities.

One particular compliance review in Arkansas stuck in Cole's memory. While conducting a compliance review at Pine Bluff, the Dean of Extension insisted that they take the wagon to their field day event. During the ride, she realized things were very different from when she worked in the cotton fields with her family.

"Back in the day, we used to do the work with our hands," Cole recalled. "Now they have machines to do the peeling and the bagging. Seeing these advances made me think—at every land-grant that I visited, particularly in Arkansas, the professors were very, very passionate about their program area. Going to field day opened my eyes to how things had evolved, how things had changed, and how things were done in a way that will make it more productive."

The intervening years opened Cole up to the changes that have occurred and the problems that remain.

"When we think of hunger, we think of third-world countries," Cole said. "In one of my classes, we watched videos of baby-boomers in West Virginia struggling just to survive – that really stuck with me. It's happening right here at home. Knowing this challenges you to keep abreast of changes in the food and agriculture world, because of the farm bill and because of all the changes that are happening in our current environment."

 

New Challenges

Finding the LL.M. in Agricultural and Food Law checked off many of Cole's boxes, everything from flexibility to convenience to networking opportunities and embracing the ever-changing environment in food and agriculture.

"The University of Arkansas offered a program that I could afford in the event I didn't get a scholarship," Cole said. "I could see myself coming back to work and being able to pay for it myself. I didn't want to get in debt to get the degree, but it was something I wanted to do. I want to help underserved areas and be knowledgeable about my subject. Knowledge is power, and I believe you can help somebody if you know yourself."

Schneider praised Cole, saying, "It has been delightful to have Lula in our classes. She brings a wealth of diverse experiences to the classroom. She is often able to remind us of the impact of the law on individuals and ground our studies in the real world. Law is not something abstract, it touches people's lives."

A common positive point for online learning and one word that arises repeatedly in the online learning community is its flexibility.

"I like the program because I can read offline and not have to worry whether I did it before class and that kind of thing," Cole said. "Online courses help me to be more flexible as opposed to taking that drive."

Despite all the positives, Cole does admit to one challenge she's had to face since starting the program: learning and employing new college technologies.

"My main challenge is uploading my videos," she said. "It's not that I'm shy of speaking. It's being in front of the camera. Yesterday I was on a Zoom meeting with a board, and I thought, ‘That's my challenge for the courses, uploading my videos into their system.'"

 

Manning Scholarship

Cole is one of 35 recipients of the W.E. Manning Memorial Scholarship for online U of A students for the 2025-2026 academic year. The scholarship began with small gifts from many people who passionately believe in the transformative power of education. Four scholarships were awarded in 2018, the inaugural year of the Manning award. In recent years, the Global Campus has invested more than $1 million in the scholarship's endowed fund. Generous donors have added to that amount through fundraising efforts such as "All in for Arkansas."

"The job I have taken doesn't pay a lot of money," Cole said. "It's a nonprofit. There's not a lot of money there, so this scholarship will help me a whole lot. When I got the e-mail, I was speechless and excited and grateful for the opportunity to be a recipient of the award. It's a blessing. Although I am taking a full course load this semester, in addition to a full case load at the office, I do see the light and intend to embrace it fully. I am so grateful for what life has for me!"

Learn more about U of A online students on the Student Experience page of the U of A ONLINE website, where online degree programs are showcased. Anyone can donate to the scholarship fund online.

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Related Articles

• A Sign of the Times: Food Law and Policy
• Framing our Food System: Lawyers on the Front Lines
• LL.M. Program Has Decade of Experience in Distance Education
• Food Safety Advocacy a Mission for Arkansas Adjunct Faculty
• Agricultural and Food Law Students Explore Critical Emerging Issues

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