Our Mediators
 Esther Macner
Esther Macner is a skilled family/divorce mediator that has developed a unique male/female co-mediation practice that is especially effective in addressing religious and inter-cultural issues that arise within the context of a civil divorce.
Esther is a former Assistant District Attorney, and divorce litigator from New York with 30 years of experience. She is also the founder of Get Jewish Divorce Justice, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles dedicated to the prevention of abuse in the Jewish divorce process. Esther was trained as a divorce mediator in 1999 under the auspices of the Association for Conflict Resolution and has augmented her skills in collaborative divorce mediation practices at Peace-Talks in 2015. She is a recent fellow of the Southern California Mediator's Association and has lectured widely at Continuing Legal Education programs for attorneys on rabbinic courts as arbitration forums, validity of Jewish premarital agreements, and constitutional challenges to enforcement of stipulations to raise children within a specific faith tradition. Her guiding philosophy is that the dissolution of marriage should not destroy the integrity of transitioning families. Esther received her JD from the Cardozo School of Law and is a member of the New York State Bar since 1987. She has an MA from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a BA from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is fluent in Hebrew and Yiddish. |
 Rafael Lapin
Raphael Lapin is a Harvard-trained negotiation, mediation, and communication specialist who serves as negotiation consultant and adviser to Fortune 500 corporations and governments globally. He is also adjunct professor of law at Whittier School of Law in Southern California where he teaches negotiation and mediation, and has lectured on international conflict resolution at Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles.
Raphael was born and raised in South Africa and educated in the United Kingdom, Israel, and the US. Raphael’s practice is based on the methodology developed and taught at the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. His driving philosophy is to help parties search for creative, innovative, and value-generating solutions while at the same time, strengthening the ongoing working relationships. He possesses the unique combination of strong analytical skills together with very creative thinking. This allows him to discover new, fresh, and innovative ideas for resolution in negotiations and disputes beyond those that the parties themselves might imagine. To learn more about Raphael Lapin, see his blog at: http://www.lapinnegotiationservices.com/blog.html Raphael teaching Negotiation strategies |