Where two worlds thrive

The honking of geese comes from the distant tree line of a horizon showing pink hints of sunrise. A dog named Storm scurries around Kathy Lloyd ’99 as she rakes wood shavings in front of a barn, where horses are inside stalls, eating hay and grain. “I like the sound of them munching,” she says.

As owner and operator of Grenoble Stables, Lloyd could have slept in after a night of working on pressing tasks for her other job as partner at Columbus law firm Carpenter Lipps. Instead, she rose at 6 a.m. to help staff bring horses in from frost-covered fields, and feed, brush and walk them before their use in riding lessons, which she’ll provide to adults and children today as instructor.

“Kathy is very hands-on, always in the barn,” says instructor and trainer Jessica Quade. “She knows what’s going on, and not all owners are like that. She’s a type A personality, which helps to make her a great lawyer. But you also have to be that way around horses or things fall apart and their welfare can be jeopardized. She’s aware of that fragility.”

Lloyd’s keen understanding of horses became ingrained at Grenoble, a Licking County, Ohio, farm established by her grandmother in 1961. Since childhood, she has spent much of her life working as part of the professional riding and training operations that her mother started six decades ago as a second-generation owner, then passed on to Kathy upon retirement in 2013. This is more than a legacy business.

“I have a real psychic need for connecting with animals and spending time in nature,” says Lloyd, who has 43 horses and ponies and a mule (some are boarders) on 77 acres at Grenoble Stables, which includes two facilities.

Doing physical farm labor provides a balance for Lloyd, who finds equal fulfillment as an attorney because that full-time job is competitive, intellectually engaging, and requires working hard and staying calm and collected under pressure to best represent a client. “It’s just a good combination for me,” she says. “If I did one or the other exclusively, I think there would be a void in my life, such that some of the joy or spark would diminish for the remaining task.”

Lloyd enjoys building relationships with those she represents, and it has made for an accomplished legal career. She joined her firm in 2002, and six years later became its youngest female partner at 32. She’s an accomplished commercial litigation lawyer, handling state and federal cases—particularly in health care, insurance and real estate—in Ohio and coast to coast.

“Kathy has a gift for understanding the needs of her clients,” says firm co-founder and partner Michael Carpenter ’74, ’77 JD. “She understands that we’re in the service business as lawyers. Who we should be on the lookout for can drift away for some lawyers, but Kathy is completely committed to client service.”

Lloyd is also dedicated to Ohio State, particularly the Newark campus, where she started as an undergraduate and took most of her courses. “It fully academically prepared me to transition to law school,” she says. “Having smaller class sizes, getting a great degree of professor feedback, and having international opportunities through study abroad really opened doors for me and put me in a place where I ended up having a lot of good options that I’m very grateful for.”

She has shown her gratitude in many ways. Lloyd focused on improving affordability for students while serving a decade on the Ohio State Newark Advisory Board, starting in 2014. Within months of joining, she established the Katheryn M. Lloyd Endowed Scholarship for Ohio State Newark students, with preference for recipients given to incoming Licking County freshmen who are high academic achievers, have working experience on a farm or business owned by their family, and demonstrate financial need. To date, more than $40,000 has been awarded to 16 students, helped by her additional gift of $100,000 in 2022 being matched by the university as part of Scarlet & Gray Advantage.

Lloyd’s scholarship, her other financial gifts to Ohio State Newark and her steadfast advocacy for its students are why the alumni association gave her its prestigious Dan L. Heinlen Award in 2023. Five years earlier, she received the Ohio State Newark Distinguished Alumni Award. “Everything about Kathy goes back to helping people,” says Kim Manno, senior director of advancement at Ohio State Newark. “She thinks of herself last in probably every scenario. She’s always thinking of others.”

Lloyd is thinking of people, animals and relationships at 7:30 on a cold fall morning at Grenoble, on the outskirts of small-town Granville, 7 miles from Ohio State Newark. Inside the barn, she stares at names of horses and students written on a chalkboard, pondering how best to pair them for today’s lessons. “You have to match personalities, abilities, size,” Lloyd says. “I also have to assign saddles that fit the horse and the rider. There are so many factors. I call it three-dimensional chess.”

She is excited about the day, the place and, as always, the work.

Lloyd’s two career worlds rarely stop spinning. Her last vacation was in 2004, and she’s known at the farm and firm for not taking days off. She keeps two laptops next to her bed at her Grenoble home, which doesn’t have a television, in case legal duties beckon in the middle of the night.

“Kathy has an infinite capacity for work,” Carpenter says. “She literally wears the buttons off her computer from typing so much. I don’t know how she does both, but she wrings the most out of her farm life and her professional life. As a result, in an odd way, instead of draining her, it energizes her.”

Lloyd, 49, says both jobs give her fuel, and she sees a common requirement in running a horse farm and being a law partner despite their different settings and lifestyles. “They’re very much the same in terms of the work ethic that you need to do both,” says Lloyd, who is single and has no children.

“When you’re taking care of horses, there’s so much that’s nonnegotiable. You don’t lie in bed in the morning and think: ‘Do I get up and feed the horses today?’ That’s just a given. Same with legal deadlines and work. You get it done and accommodate clients, no options. There, I might be in a courtroom. Here, I’m in a barn. But the focus feels very similar.”

Horses were her focus upon graduating from high school. Lloyd declined a New York University scholarship offer to stay and help her brother (a U.S. Marine Corps veteran) run the family farm while their single mother was away for a few months training camels in a traveling circus. When she returned, Lloyd left to work at a North Carolina stable serving as base for the Canadian Olympic equestrian team, then spent one season as a horse show groom in Florida. Gap year ended when mom summoned her back to Grenoble to help care for five mares giving birth to foals.

When Lloyd returned home, many of her high school classmates were in college. A best friend asked her to reconsider her path, and within a week, Lloyd signed up for full-time classes at Ohio State Newark. However, it was too late to apply for financial aid, and she had to pay her own way ($1,200) that first quarter.

“That completely flipped a switch in my mindset,” Lloyd says. “Once I wrote a check with money I had incurred from a very difficult, emotionally and physically demanding job, I thought to myself: ‘I paid to be here, so I’m going to extract every ounce of value I can get out of this education.’”

Lloyd double-majored in English and French while cramming quarters (then the system) with an average of 21 class hours, including highs of 26 and 25. She participated in theatre, rode for the university’s equestrian team, served two terms as student rep on the Ohio State Newark Advisory Board, and studied abroad in France for six months. When some upper-level courses weren’t offered at Newark, she caught a 5:45 a.m. or 6:15 bus in Granville for a trip to the Columbus campus that involved a transfer and totaled an hour or more each way.

Despite such a hectic schedule as an honors student, Lloyd worked at Grenoble Stables throughout her four years at Ohio State. “It’s just the lifestyle I was immersed in from a very, very young age,” she says. “As a child, we had little farm tools like pitchforks that were scaled down in size. The expectation in our family was that everybody chips in, and we’re all responsible for these living creatures. We have an obligation to make sure they’re well cared for.”

Such discipline and dedication helped Lloyd graduate summa cum laude, and Ohio State named her most outstanding graduating senior who began at a regional campus. Three years later, she graduated magna cum laude from Duke University’s law school and immediately began a career at Carpenter Lipps, while returning to work weekends at Grenoble. She has added more farm hours, whenever possible, since becoming stable owner and operator 13 years ago.

Lloyd says technology advancements in recent years have provided more flexibility to her schedule. Witness depositions, case filings, conference meetings and the sharing of documents for preparation can often be done online from her home. She still travels as an attorney, but not as much.

“It took that sea change within the legal industry,” Lloyd says, “for me to get to a spot where I felt comfortable that I can be here primarily on the farm but still able to do firm work and do it well. I can close the laptop, step right outside, check on the horses, fill water troughs, toss hay.”

As Saturday riding lessons approach, Lloyd discards her mason jar of coffee and joins staff members in leading horses from their stalls to an indoor sand ring connected to the barn. “We start them slow for a nice, relaxed walk so that when a human gets on them, the horses are relaxed,” Lloyd says.

Quade says Lloyd always keeps front of mind the welfare of all the Grenoble horses, doing so by reading their emotional state from signals they give off.

With a riding crop in hand, Lloyd walks through a barn door to an outdoor riding ring. Time for lessons.

Two adult riders on trotting horses are peppered with a stream of instructions as Lloyd follows on foot near them across an outdoor ring at Grenoble Stables. “Both of you are going to think about little light touches with your right leg,” Lloyd says. “We want the horse’s belly and shoulders moving out to the left. Head and neck should be coming slightly to the right.”

Lloyd’s advice is measured and positive throughout the class, aiming to improve different skills in the riding style Hunter Jumper, an equestrian sport of two related disciplines in which horses jump over fences.

There’s no jumping this day. Instead, all emphasis is on form, demeanor and movement of rider and horse because their partnership’s elegance and harmony are judged in competition. Small things matter, which is why Lloyd points out the angle of a rider’s ankle.

“Her attention to detail always surprises and awes me,” rider Bess Wills of Newark says later. “The minute you think you’re taking a break, she says, ‘Get your hands up.’ She has eyes everywhere.”

Lloyd’s sharp observation also provides her precise understanding about distinct personalities of horses at Grenoble Stables. Winston is unflappable, Cal is mischievous, and Baby Stewie is a character. Bully is calm, sweet and goes everywhere with his best friend, Connor. Big Macey loves attention and has a heart of gold. And Lloyd knows all the rest, too. They’re partners. “You need basic empathy and a relationship with the horse,” Lloyd says. “You have to be very in tune with them to communicate effectively with them. You have to get away from your inward focus and focus externally.”

Lloyd says the same outward mindset is needed in her law work: Cases are about the client’s needs. To meet those, she sees them as individuals and builds a relationship through trust and communication. She tracks details while keeping sight of the larger plan. “Kathy is uniquely talented in terms of assessing the strength and weaknesses of a case,” says Carpenter Lipps associate Tadd Minton ’20 JD, who works closely with Lloyd. “She’s extremely detail-oriented, thinking through all the possible scenarios.

“Our job is to make sure we don’t miss anything. Above all else, that’s what Kathy has taught me: Whatever option you take, don’t miss the big picture on what could happen.”

Lloyd’s broad view of her own life is total commitment to helping law clients, Ohio State Newark and the riders and horses at her beloved Grenoble Stables. That’s why she keeps those two computers next to her bed. Why she approached Ohio State Newark to create her scholarship without being asked. Why she always pays attention with a jeweler’s eye while doing whatever is required on the family farm.

“Kathy is like a lioness,” Wills says. “She’s so fierce in her skill and so protective.”

Lloyd knows to look out for herself, too. If she encounters a rare free window of time, usually on a weekend, she’ll take a horse for a ride on the fields or trails of Grenoble.

“When you’re riding, it clears your mind and gets you very focused,” Lloyd says. “Your mind isn’t racing and thinking about, ‘I need to finish this or I need to finish that.’ It is almost kind of meditative to get a few minutes where it’s just you and the horse, and you have total immersion in communicating with the animal.”

An opportunity beckoned on a cold fall morning. All barn chores were finished, riding classes yet to begin. No law firm texts, calls or emails.

The sun had been up less than an hour when Lloyd tied leather chaps over her flannel-lined jeans, strapped a safety vest around her torso, put a helmet on her head, and climbed aboard a thoroughbred named Baby.

Together as one, they rode alone for 20 minutes, Lloyd feeling the special connection she has cherished since childhood—the bond that feeds all the other connections that fill and fulfill her busy days.

“It’s one of the best things in life,” Lloyd says