Monday, March 26, 2018
Remarks on the Passing of Sheldon Braverman, Former City Club Board President
Shelly Braverman died last Saturday, March 24th. He was a good man, committed to making his community a better place. Many City Club members have known Shelly for a long time, as a regular presence at the Friday Forum, for decades. He was president of the Club’s board in 1995, which means that he would likely have been present for to see President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (he would have delivered the introduction at that forum, actually), along with many others. There were no fewer than seven rabbis present at his funeral, a few of whom spoke, along with his daughter and granddaughters. But the words I’d like to share were those prepared and delivered by his friend and fellow City Club member, Tom Wagner.
- Dan Moulthrop
About a year and a half ago I took Shelly to lunch and he told me he had a surprise. “Guess what I am doing now? I’m taking boxing lessons.” Here’s a 75-year-old little Jewish guy wracked by Parkinson’s taking boxing lessons and I’ll tell you why I wasn’t surprised after I tell you another story or two about him.
Before everything went digital, Ohio Attorneys, every week received a little printedbookletinthe mail with the latest Ohio decisions of any significance: Ohio Supreme Court decisions, the important Appellate and Common Pleas court decisions. Shelly practiced for nearly 40 years, 52 weeks per year times 40 years... I’ll let his grandchildren do the math. Like every other lawyer I knew, I would get my OBAR, scan the index, maybe read a decision and then recycle it. Even so, there was always a 6-inch stack of OBAR’s on my desk. Not so with Shelly – he kept them all. At home. Piled in corners all around. Fern finally putthehammerdown and said: “Shelly, find a place for these.” And they disappeared… until the next time. Fern pulled open his sock and underwear drawers and found them filled with OBARs, not socks and underwear. But that didn’t surprise me either. Truth is that Shelly loved the law, respected the law and the OBARs were, in a very real sense, The Law and--I’m not Jewish–but I think at some level saving the OBARs – having them near him-- was like protecting the Torah for Shelly. Shelly respected and defended the law at a level that was and is very, very exceptional – even among attorneys.
Shelly considered being a lawyer a profession … not a business. He was as devoted to his clients as he was to the law. He was a lawyer’s lawyer – not a rainmaker. In an age of cynicism where the respect for the rule of law and devotion to your clients’ best interests are being Trumped by a selfish pursuit of money and power, Shelly was a throwback, an exception – a stubborn exception to the norm. He could be stubborn. He could be – in fact – a pain in the tuchus when itcametorespect for the law, or his client’s interests, or the truth. Believe me – I was only one of his partners for a couple of years. Ask Fern.
Let me leave you with a final story. Shelly joined Howard Metzenbaum’s firm right out of law school. He became a partner and was well established there when I joined it in 1984. About 10 years after that the firm merged with another law firm – not a good marriage - and as part of that process, Shelly was let go. It was a cruel and frankly stupid decision. The new management claimed Shelly had to go because he could no longer try cases. What Shelly did in response to that insult has forever been at the top of the list of heroic lawyer stories. Shelly did not blink – he left the only firm he had ever known, he set that Braverman jaw,andmovedhis practice – his profession - to the Rockefeller building. And there he proceeded to prove his detractors wrong … 100 percent wrong. In the years that followed, Shelly Braverman personally tried more cases in courts than any of his chest-thumping detractors ever did – in their entire careers. And he made a very decent living at it. By the way, his old firm eventually broke up and was dissolved. And did I tell you about the marathons he ran? Or the fact that he was elected president of the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers? Or the fact that he was elected president of the Cleveland City Club – the citadel of Free Speech?
That is why I was not the least bit surprised when he told me he was taking boxing lessons.
God bless you, Shelly.
