Sivan Appelbaum, Law Office and Mediation

The law office of Adv. and Mediator Sivan Appelbaum handles family and business mediations. The firm was established by Adv. Appelbaum, who has 25 years of experience as a lawyer, of which 19 years primarily handling mediations. She no longer represents clients in court and only handles aspects of forming agreements inside the family, including drafting wills and lasting powers of attorney. In 2014 she completed her master’s degree in dispute resolution and mediation from Tel Aviv University with honors.
Adv. Appelbaum’s approach to mediation is wide and enabling, stemming from her beliefs that her role is to settle disputes and align relationships, in addition to finding a proper solution for the legal question at hand. Therefore, as far as she is concerned, any topic brought up by either party is a subject worth discussing. However, she also believes in the pragmatic approach and manages the expectations of all parties involved, that this is not family therapy, and that this procedure should be about forming agreements in the shortest timeframe possible.
As a result, mediation meetings are handled in a precise and focused manner, while aiming for quick meetings and short procedures.

Long Standing Experience in Managing a Mediation Center, Teaching Young Mediators, and Teaching Mediation Seminars

Adv. Appelbaum started her career in mediation with the establishment and management of “The Ness Ziona Center for Mediation and Dialogue”, which operates as a non-profit organization. This organization was established thanks to the collaboration initiated by Adv. Appelbaum between the city of Ness Ziona and HP Indigo, which together funded this project and its activities. This center exists and operates to this day. Adv. Appelbaum managed it for 4 years, during which she recruited a team of 30 volunteer mediators who handled about 300 applications a year and executed a plan to implement the mediation process in the community, collaborating with local and national entities in the process. In this framework, Adv. Appelbaum took part in the development and implementation of a training program on the topic of Elder “Mediation and Old Age” together with the Ministry of Justice and the Joint’s “Eshel” organization.
Since 2009, she has served as a mediator in civil matters on behalf of the Courts Administration, and since 2011, she has been recognized by the Courts Administration as a practicum instructor in mediation training program. Since 2016 she has been included in the list of family mediators of the family courts’ assistance units, and, since 2012 she has been working in collaboration with the assistance units at the family courts.

In addition, she teaches three courses on behalf of the Israel Bar Association:

A practicum mediation program, a family mediation completion course, and a workshop on child support. Furthermore, Sivan hosts advanced mediation workshops, including intergenerational mediation for a community of certified mediators who work in mediation and dialogue centers across the country.

Areas of Practice

Family Mediation – Adv. Appelbaum specializes in the following areas: mediation between spouses during all relationship and parenting stages, including cohabitation agreement, matters relating to parenting agreements, financial agreements for cohabitation and for spouses, domestic peace agreements and, alternatively, divorce agreements.
Family Mediation (multilateral and intergenerational) – including inheritance and wills disputes as well as pre-inheritance disputes (prior to the death of the provider). In these contexts, real estate issues often arise, such as dissolution of partnerships, sales, etc., as well as complex financial balances, with Adv. Appelbaum being knowledgeable and experienced in these matters as well.
Mediation on matters relating to sharing the responsibility of tending to an elderly parent between children, as well as for the purpose of formulating guidelines for drafting lasting power of attorney – in these contexts, Adv. Appelbaum’s expertise and experience in the fields of mediation and elderly population mediation, and mediation for people with disabilities are relevant.
Civil-Commercial Mediation – mainly in matters relating to real estate, eviction claims, partnerships, general civil-commercial, discrimination, and disabled individuals.

Finding the Common Pace

Adv. Appelbaum emphasizes making the mediation process physically, verbally, and emotionally accessible, as well as finding the common pace moving the procedure forward, that is tailored to all parties involved. Thus, mainly during mediation between spouses, one party usually wants a quick process and the other still wants to take the time to understand the situation and needs a slower process. Therefore, in most cases, the mediation is not done with a long-hours marathon but rather with taking short breaks between meetings, to allow both parties to take in all the information, seek advice, and consult with experts as much as possible.

Representing the Silent Voices

Due to her vast experience, Adv. Appelbaum as aware of the “silent voices” that may subtly arise during the process and aids these voices, whether it’s a man or a woman, to be heard and take an active part in the process. This way, if one side is “weaker” or softer spoken than the other, she makes sure they are heard, while maintaining her neutral state in the mediation process.

Legal, Financial, Personal, family, and Even Community Reality Test

During mediation procedures Adv. Appelbaum manages a multi-dimensional reality test: she assists all parties to examine and asses the consequences of the dispute, from the financial, legal, personal, family, and community aspects and offers a wide range of options for handling these matters. Her legal background enables her to analyze the data and present all parties with the pros and cons of the process. Together they can find an alternative approach to an unsettling, long, and exhausting procedure in court. This way, Sivan also assists parties to maintain amicable relationships and improve their dialogue, from the understanding that they will probably need to make mutual decisions again in the future and in favor of children or other family members involved (parents, siblings, etc.).

Creating a Safe Space for Everyone

More than anything, Adv. Appelbaum assures her mediation room will be a safe place for all parties and doesn’t accept any aggression, verbal abuse, or threats be made whether directly or vicariously. In addition, she doesn’t accept any yelling or manipulation and checks with all sides, beforehand and during the process, what they need to feel the room is a safe space for them. When any such hardship arises (even if it is subjective to one side) she will separate some of the meetings using online conference options (such as Zoom meetings). In more complex cases she will redirect the parties to legal counselling, or she will terminate the process herself.