Divorce Mediation

A little about us

The law office of Osnat and Yossi Reich provides divorce mediation services to couples who wish to divorce by mutual consent, with professional, personal and close guidance.
The mediation is conducted by Adv. and notary Osnat Reich, who specializes in divorce and family law and is a certified divorce mediator, including specific training in divorce and family mediation (from the Israel Bar Association's continuing education institute).
Adv. and mediator Osnat Reich, a member of the Israel Bar Association's Mediation Committee and of the Bar's liaison committee for the Sharon region, has gained proven experience and a strong reputation both as a divorce attorney in all the various courts, including the Rabbinical Courts, and as a mediator in divorce and family disputes, with a very high success rate in conducting mediation in divorce and family disputes.

The office provides professional mediation services both to couples who have decided to divorce and wish to do so by agreement outside the courtroom, and to couples who have already started divorce proceedings, are in the middle of them, and wish to conclude them by agreement.

In addition, mediation sometimes calls for the help of other professionals, so we maintain close working relationships with outside experts in related fields (such as couples counselors, actuaries, real estate appraisers, real estate brokers, psychologists and more), all in order to give the parties the most professional and comprehensive care and guidance, for excellent results, while tailoring the service to each client individually.

Scheduling a divorce mediation meeting

If you too are peace-seeking people who want to minimize conflict and battles in your lives, the excellent alternative we offer, a professional mediation process in a pleasant atmosphere, is calling you. You are welcome to contact our office to schedule a first mediation meeting, and we can help by giving you unique and useful tools to settle your disputes in a dignified, fair, proper and fast way.

Finding it hard to choose a divorce mediation attorney? Know why?
Because divorce is a complex and emotionally difficult process, especially when there are children involved.
With all due respect to other attorneys, choosing the right person, the right personality, is the key to success.

Come meet us and let your intuition tell you whether we are the right fit for you.

What is divorce mediation?

Divorce is never a simple process. Even so, the way you divorce has significant consequences for the future!
Divorce mediation is a good and effective alternative for resolving marital conflict and drafting a divorce agreement (or a marital reconciliation agreement, or alternatively a divorce agreement) by mutual consent, instead of fighting prolonged legal battles and litigation that consume a great deal of time, energy and considerable financial resources, and that may even escalate and sour the relationship.

The goal of mediation is to help the spouses find the middle ground that is right for them, by working out fair and well-considered solutions to end the dispute, through a divorce by agreement and a divorce agreement reached freely and by choice. In divorce mediation we help resolve the conflict in a way that is dignified, pleasant, efficient, fast and cost-effective, and acceptable to both sides.
Divorce mediation (also called family mediation or couples mediation) is not a magic formula, and it cannot prevent the heartache that comes with breaking up a family. That is not the role of a divorce mediation attorney. Likewise, not everything can always be mediated. Even so, divorce mediation can significantly reduce the difficulties and trauma involved in such an emotionally complex process.

A mutual effort to find a fair and dignified solution of divorce by agreement, one that both spouses accept, through direct communication and forward-looking thinking, especially when there are children involved, with the help of a professional and neutral divorce mediation attorney, greatly increases the chances of success and can produce better results, as well as stability and calm in the future.
The particular complexity of this situation calls for a divorce mediation attorney with experience and broad legal knowledge of family law, who will act wisely and with great sensitivity. The mediator's role is critical to the success of the process.

In divorce mediation, the spouses can be helped, through a third party, the mediator, to clarify what the significant interests of each of them are, in order to reach a divorce agreement (or a marital reconciliation agreement, or alternatively a divorce agreement) covering all the matters in dispute, through a divorce by mutual consent, quickly and efficiently, at relatively low cost, without the need for prolonged legal battles in the courts.

Mediation is considered the most cost-effective and efficient approach to family disputes, and an effective and highly recommended tool for resolving disputes for most couples who wish to part amicably and in a calm atmosphere, so as to allow the continued parental relationship that is essential to their children's healthy development.

Mediation allows spouses who are approaching and/or going through divorce proceedings to reach, within a short time, an agreement covering all the matters essential to them and their children, with mutual respect and consideration for the needs of every member of the family.

It is important to know that divorce mediation is a voluntary process. That is, the parties take part in divorce mediation of their own free will and reach the solutions they want by themselves, through the close professional guidance of a divorce mediation attorney, without any coercion by the mediator. The role of a divorce mediator, as a professional and objective person, is to help the spouses reach the best solutions for everyone, with an emphasis on respect, effective communication and fairness.

A divorce mediator has no authority to decide the dispute. Nor is the mediator's role to decide which spouse is more in the right, or to judge between the parties, but solely to lead them and guide their way professionally and neutrally, so that they themselves manage to find common ground on their disputes and reach a mutual agreement, that is, a mediation agreement.

For this reason, the parties may end divorce mediation at any time.
During divorce mediation, several mediation meetings are held in a relaxed atmosphere, in which the divorce mediator meets with both parties together around one table, and may also hold separate mediation meetings as needed.

Divorce mediation requires four basic conditions:

1. Both spouses agree in principle to divorce.
2. There are certain disputes between the spouses, for example regarding the children or the division of property, and
3. Both spouses wish to talk to each other in a dignified, pleasant and calm way, in order to find agreed solutions to their disputes.
4. To that end, both wish and agree to involve a professional and neutral party, a divorce mediator (preferably also a divorce attorney), to accompany them and help them settle all their disputes and draw up a divorce agreement whose terms they set themselves, with the mediator's help, mutually and fairly, freely and by choice.

Privilege and confidentiality of the process

Divorce mediation is a privileged and confidential process, meaning that the divorce mediator is barred from disclosing details of what takes place in it. If the process does not end in a divorce by agreement, the parties return to court, and neither they nor the divorce mediator may disclose to the court any details from the mediation. Nor can the mediator be summoned to testify about the mediation.

During divorce mediation, if the mediator sees a need, he may meet separately with each of the parties, and what is said in that meeting will be privileged and confidential unless the parties approve its disclosure.
Regarding confidentiality in mediation, Regulation 5 of the Courts (Mediation) Regulations, 5753-1993 (the “Mediation Regulations”) provides:
(d) The mediator shall not use any information given to him during the mediation, which he could not have obtained otherwise with reasonable effort, for any purpose other than the mediation.
(e) The mediator shall not disclose any information given to him during the mediation to anyone who is not a party to the mediation.
(f) Where a litigant gave the mediator information with a request to keep it secret, the mediator shall keep the information confidential from every other litigant, unless the person who gave the information waived its confidentiality.

Reaching a divorce agreement

In mediation the parties go through a process of change, moving from dispute and conflict to agreement. As to how the mediation is conducted, Regulation 6 of the Mediation Regulations provides:“(1) The litigants must act fairly and in good faith during the mediation; they may independently consult at any stage with whomever they wish on any matter in the mediation, and they may end the mediation at any time in accordance with Regulation 8(a);(2) The mediator may meet with the litigants, together or separately, and with a litigant's consent, without his attorney, as well as with anyone connected to the dispute, including the attorney of a litigant separately.”At the end of divorce mediation or family mediation, if it succeeds, a divorce agreement is drafted by the divorce mediation attorney (or by the parties' own attorneys) and submitted to the Family Court or the Rabbinical Court for approval and the force of a judgment. In addition, a divorce mediator who is also an attorney is authorized to submit the agreement to the court for approval on the parties' behalf and to represent them at the hearing itself.

Regulation 9 of the Mediation Regulations provides:

9. The mediation settlement
(a) Where the litigants have reached a mediation settlement, the litigants or the mediator shall put it in writing, setting out all the terms on which the dispute will be resolved; the litigants shall sign the mediation settlement and the mediator shall confirm it with his signature.
(b) Once the mediation settlement is signed, the mediator shall notify the court as soon as possible; if the litigants have asked that the mediation settlement be given the force of a judgment, the mediator shall attach a copy of it to his notice.
(c) The court may give the mediation settlement the force of a judgment, and may also summon the litigants to court to explain the mediation settlement to it.”
Also relevant here is the Courts Law, 5744-1984 (Section 79C), which likewise deals with mediation:
(h) Where the parties to a dispute have reached agreement on settling the dispute between them in mediation conducted under this Law, the court competent to hear a claim on the subject of the dispute may give the mediation settlement reached between them the force of a judgment, even if no claim was filed in that dispute.”
Mediation spares the spouses a prolonged legal battle that costs a great deal of money and is usually accompanied by hostility, pain and anxiety for the whole family.

Moreover, in divorce mediation the mediator helps strengthen the positive forces in each spouse in order to prevent escalation in the relationship and reduce the trauma and harm that accompany separation, with special attention to the needs of minor children and particular emphasis on their best interests when the divorce agreement is worked out in mediation.

According to the statistics, divorce agreements reached in mediation are more stable in the long term. This is probably because they are agreements the parties themselves reached on their own initiative, with content they set by mutual consent.

Divorce mediation knowledge base (articles, legislation and more)

As part of the service of our mediation law office in Ra'anana and the Sharon region, we are pleased to offer clients and site visitors useful supplementary professional information on divorce mediation and family mediation.

• What are the advantages of divorce mediation?

• Why choose a divorce mediator who is also a divorce attorney?

• The format of the divorce mediation process.

• The first mediation meeting model.

• What matters are discussed in mediation?

• The divorce agreement.

• Approval of a divorce mediation agreement by the Family Court.

• A mediation agreement between the parties (the mediated parties) and the divorce mediator (a standard agreement).

• Questions and answers (Q&A) on divorce mediation.

• Relevant legislation (on divorce and family in general and divorce mediation in particular).

We strive to update, expand and improve the knowledge base from time to time.

If there is a topic related to divorce mediation or family mediation that interests you and you did not find it addressed or answered on this site, or if you have questions about divorce mediation, you are welcome to contact us and we will be happy to help.

Family mediation is a broad term that is not limited to divorce mediation, but refers to mediation within the family in the wider sense.

Family mediation can resolve disputes within the family, including, for example:
* Family mediation by a divorce and family mediator to resolve disputes over the drafting of a prenuptial / financial agreement.

* Family mediation by a divorce and family mediator to resolve disputes that arise between divorced couples after the divorce (changing the amount of child support, how the children are raised and educated, implementing the division of property, and more).

* Family mediation to resolve disputes over wills and inheritance (between heirs).

* Family mediation by a divorce and family mediator to resolve personal disputes between family members, such as siblings, parents and children, etc.

* Family mediation to resolve any other problem arising in connection with the family unit, which can, and preferably should, be resolved peacefully through family mediation, with the professional help of a divorce and family mediator.