Narrative BiographyThis page, like my life, is always under construction.
1958-1975
I was born in St. Cloud, Florida on January 15, 1958. I don't mind sharing my age because otherwise, with all my life experiences, you might think I am even older. I lived in St. Cloud, almost entirely in the same house, until I went to college. I have two sisters and a brother, all younger. My parents still live in Florida, as do one sister and my brother.
1975-1982
I attended Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. I majored in Economics/Business and International Studies with a focus on Latin American Studies. A major part of my focus was a Colombian student I met there. We were married in 1977 and Bryan came along in October. I took some time off but returned to school and finished. About the time I graduated, my marriage was ending and we divorced in 1982.
1983-1989
After a short and unsuccessful enlistment into the US Army (I wasn't accepted because I was a single parent), I served a brief stint with Walt Disney World reservations. I was managing a guesthouse in Kissimmee, FL when I met and married again. My second husband had five children. We also home-schooled and took in runaways and helped them get their heads on straight so they could go home. We ran our own business, a taxi and airport transportation business, so my schedule was relatively flexible. With Bryan, and our daughter who was born in 1984, I was raising seven children when I decided to go to law school.
|
Both my husband and I were politically active and, with so many kids, there was a lot going on with custody court, so it looked like a good idea to send me to law school. I started law school in January, 1987. Our marriage went from bad to worse and we separated and divorced while I was in law school. The kids didn't split up along the lines most would have expected and I ended up with a mixture of his, mine and ours. His oldest daughter got married and separated and came to live with me while I was in law school. Ben, my first grandchild, was born while I was taking my first bar exam. In 1989, I passed the Georgia bar exam, graduated, and passed the Florida bar exam. I was sworn into the Georgia Bar in 1989. I ended up not joining the Florida bar. (It is a long story that I'll be happy to share over a hot cup of tea sometime.)1989-1994
In law school, I had become a Guardian Ad Litem and I continued advocating for children when I graduated. My first job out of law school was as Executive Director of the Sexual and Physical Abuse Resource Center in Gainesville, Florida. The board of directors and I had different ideas of where the agency should go. (In retrospect, I still think they were wrong! Our agency was responsible for eleven counties in the grant from our major funding source. We were doing little to nothing in ten counties. The board refused to accept a grant that provided funding for outreach workers in those ten outlying, rural counties.) I resigned (somewhat dramatically). I had my eye on another job, working with children of divorce, that started the next month so I wasn't too worried. Before the ink was dry on my resignation, a state hiring freeze eliminated the job. I was unemployed for nine months.
In 1991, I started participating in courses offered by Landmark Education. In the Landmark Forum, I took responsibility for my life in a new way and started designing it rather than being at the effect of whatever came along. I had never liked living in Florida and my new partner and I set out to find a place we would like. After a seven state tour and a lot of research, I ended up back in North Carolina. This time, I was in the Research Triangle area. I had decided I didn't want to practice law after all--I had had a bad law school experience and didn't have much faith in the profession. I spent a couple of years working as a temp, looking for a real job outside of the law. At every turn, I was a finalist but not chosen. I think that not practicing law had a lot to do with that. Most interviewers were puzzled about why I wasn't practicing law. Now, I am glad since I would never have practiced law if I had gotten a decent job. In 1994, I met Forrest Bayard, a lawyer who was approaching divorce from a non-adversarial position. I was inspired to become a lawyer and to create a new way of practicing law. In 1994, I took and passed the North Carolina bar exam. I was sworn in March, 1994.
1995-2000
After a short stint in the office of an experienced lawyer, from 1995 to 2000, I practiced law in my own practice. I also remarried again in May, 1995, to a computer systems manager. For most of that time, I was managing attorney of the Divorce and Family Law Center in Graham, North Carolina, a multi-disciplinary holistic law practice providing legal representation, social work, counseling, mediation, and resources for divorcing clients and the community. Surprisingly, I really loved practicing law, unlike about 40% of lawyers who want to leave the profession. It was a challenge to create such a different kind of law practice in a small town but I really enjoyed it. And it made a big difference to my clients and the community.
2000-2003
My husband was offered a high-tech job in Oregon in late 1999. In 2000, I relocated to join him in Hillsboro, Oregon, just outside of Portland. It was sad to leave my community in North Carolina. In nearly ten years, I had put down some very deep roots. But, I was excited about the possibility of a new place and new opportunities. My Landmark Education training had prepared me for reinventing myself and designing new futures. I also realized that it had prepared me with coaching skills. I took courses from Life On Purpose Institute to coalesce what I knew as a coach. I "hung my shingle" as a coach for lawyers and started conducting research on what was going on in the legal profession. I was especially interested in holistic approaches to law and attended several conferences and began to read more about alternative approaches to legal practice.
In September, 2000, I completed the Landmark Power and Contribution Program and created the context for the rest of my life. In that program, we were coached to create a promise for the world that is so big that no one person could accomplish it. Then we are supposed to take it on and enroll others in aligning with us. Being the over-achiever that I am, I took on three levels of promise.
By 2010, I promise a legal system that works for everyone, where lawyers are peacemakers, healers, and problem-solvers, being agents of transformation with their clients.
I promise a world at peace by 2012, where all people realize their interconnectedness and honor conflict as an opportunity for transformation.
I promise a world that works for all by 2040.With my first project being the transformation of the legal system, I began to research and talk to people about what that would look like. Two other lawyers and I founded Renaissance Lawyer, at first expecting it to be a vehicle for our coaching practices. I wrote the first Renaissance Lawyer web site and worked full-time on transformation of the legal system for almost two years. During that time, I was joined by many capable and committed colleagues who worked with me to create an organization. Now, the Renaissance Lawyer Society has become a non-profit entity with members all over North America.
In 2002, I was divorced once again. I continued coaching lawyers and working as a volunteer for RLS. I traveled all over the country attending conferences either as a speaker or participant. In January, 2003, I was offered a job at a Portland law firm focused on peaceful divorces. There I met Marty Price. (See article in March, 04 issue of Alternatives Magazine.)
In summer of 2004, Marty and I moved back to North Carolina to open a new law and conflict resolution practice based on the many peacemaking approaches I've been reading, speaking, coaching and writing about for the past five years. My goal is to create a practice that is a model of what is possible in a new paradigm. I co-founded a collaborative law group and helped trained multi-disciplinary team members.
Never one to work on one project at a time, in the first year in North Carolina, besides buying a great house, pictured, I also hosted a conference and a women's retreat and was a speaker at several events. Most exciting, with a new business partner, we began a new venture, The Cutting Edge Law Magazine, will launch in 2007.
Early in 2007, Marty and I decided to go our separate ways. He went off to South America on a Fulbright grant and we decided to put the house on the market.
And, the rest is history in the making. (See family photos.)