I was lucky enough to go to an event a couple of weeks ago in Washington DC to honor Richard Braman, the founder of the Sedona Conference. Richard pulled off an amazing feat of getting defense lawyers, plaintiff’s lawyers, judges, vendors and many others talking to each other and making changes in the law to make things better in litigation, particularly in the areas of complex litigation, antitrust, and patent litigation.

I hate litigation – I think it is a waste of time, money, and resources and I think so many things could be solved with an apology and if that doesn’t work, then try mediation. I got involved with Cataphora because I thought it could make a huge difference in how people find “information” and SETTLE pending litigation. And as part of my work with Cataphora, I became involved with Working Group 1 with the Sedona Conference. I’ve had the privilege of knowing Richard and being a part of the Sedona Conference since 2004.

Why do I consider Richard a mentor? Because knowing him has made me a better person, a better lawyer, and a better citizen. I have used his “dialogue not debate” mantra ever since I met him. It is from Mark Gerzon’s book  Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences into Opportunities. It is something Richard says at the beginning of EVERY meeting. It leads to a higher level of respect among participants – and it also helped that he stole/borrowed the Vegas tagline of “What happens in Sedona, stays in Sedona.” This was put in place so that a lawyer didn’t use something someone said at one of these frank and lively meetings at another time, in court, against someone else in the room.

Way back in the Fall of 2005(?) I can’t remember exactly when, but it was in Vancouver and Michael Clark was giving me a hard time about knitting in meetings and called me Madame Dafarge. It was during this “discussion” that he gave me the idea of knitting something for Richard. I contacted Richard’s wife Margo, who does all of the artwork for the Sedona Conference (she’s awesome, by the way) to get their logo, which is a bit intricate. She sent me the graphic file and I went about trying to translate it into/onto knitting graph paper so that it would come out at the right scale.

It took me awhile to figure out that trying to get the logo onto knitting graph paper wasn’t going to work and that I would have to freehand knit the logo. Once I figured that out, I started knitting the logo right away. During the meeting I was knitting that logo, Richard asked me if I could knit him a scarf. I told him – sure no problem, I’d love to knit him a scarf (there’s only so much knitting I can do for myself). A little while later at the same meeting he came back to me and said I better not knit him a scarf, it wouldn’t be good for the marriage. I told him Greg didn’t care if I knit for other people. Richard didn’t miss a beat and he said “No, it wouldn’t be good for my marriage!” Well, then I had to come clean with him and admit that I had already spoken to Margo about knitting him something. Then all was right with the world. Almost…

I hated the logo knitting – it was a bit bulky and not so cleaned line as the logo itself (duh, it’s knitting). So, I put it aside and decided to just knit a scarf and not the logo’d sweater I had set out to knit. I also had to find an alphabet pattern to be able to knit “The Sedona Conference” into the scarf. I farted around with the alphabet and decided that it should go on top as double stitching rather than knitting into the scarf. I finished the scarf quickly but then set it aside (in 2008) to figure out how to double stitch the logo and words onto the scarf. Well, it languished in my unfinished object drawer until a week before the event honoring Richard. Then I really had to solve the logo/alphabet problem to have it done in time for his event.

I figured out what to do on the plane to DC – after trying three different things. In the end, crocheting on top of the knitting worked. I knitted pockets on the back of the scarf to cover the ends. I finished at about 6 pm the night of the event (which started at 7 pm). I had planned to knit on the metro but there was a Nationals’ game and no seat to be found that afternoon! I brought the knitted logo that night and came up with the idea of knitting a back for it and making it into a pillow cover (it’s just the right size).

It was an amazing, heartfelt event. People from all different types of his events came to pay tribute to him. I loved the judges stories – there were 5 of them who spoke about Richard before the open mic portion of the evening started. I personally loved the open mic portion – even if we had to catch the mic as it was thrown across the room to us! (Having to keep up with three boys in sports helps with that ability). I told the story that you are reading here and thanked both Richard and Margo for what they provided and for being in my life.

Tiger is helping me with Richard's Scarf

Why we don’t honor more people when they are alive is beyond me. It was gratifying to publicly be able to tell Richard thank you.

PS – I finished the pillow back on the plane ride home. More about that one later.