Menu
Attorney and Mediator, Terri Breer, has mediated hundreds of family law disputes, including divorce, custody, property division, pre-marital agreements, domestic partnerships, and surrogacy arrangements. Although she has been a licensed attorney since 1985 and has experience as a civil litigator conducting civil trials involving business, real estate and family law disputes, her practice for the past 30 years has been devoted to mediation of family law disputes.
She graduated from Pepperdine Law School in 1985 and in 1993 she returned to Pepperdine to attend the Domestic Dispute Resolution Training Program presented by the newly founded Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine School of Law. In 2003 she was a founding member of Collaborative Divorce Solutions, Orange County’s collaborative practice group. She has written several articles on alternative dispute resolution and the need for change in the current family law adversarial system. She was Chair of Orange County Bar Association – Alternative Dispute Resolution Section in 2014. She has served as Board Member of the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA) for two terms from 2015 to 2021. She has led SCMA’s Orange County Professional Development Group and has chaired the SCMA Family Mediation Institute (FMI) in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 2022, and is currently co-chair for this year’s FMI.
In 2001 she began offering her flat fee Divorce Mediation Programs that she designed to provide an affordable and innovative option for divorcing spouses to resolve their divorce disputes.
Ms. Breer provides family mediation training for California attorneys, therapists, financial professionals, and mediators through her company, New Day Divorce Centers, Inc. Her training program curriculum focuses on instructing family mediators on the legal issues in divorce, relevant California Statutes, characterization, and division of marital property, determining child and spousal support, preparing parenting plans, and document preparation required to process uncontested divorce throughout family law courts in California jurisdictions.
Ms. Breer is active in hosting various networking and educational opportunities for divorce professionals, including South Coast Collaborative Professionals Luncheons and Mixers that she hosted quarterly from 2006 to 2016, and The Attorney Therapist Breakfast Club that was founded in 2017 and meets monthly in Orange County. Both professional groups bring together professionals who share her commitment to helping families resolve divorce and family disputes cooperatively outside of the adversarial court system.
Marci is a respected mediator, known for being a thoughtful listener and creative
problem solver. She is an industry leader in the early resolution of family conflicts
through mediation, facilitated family meetings and interpersonal communication
strategies.
Carlie Berke is the Founder of Your Money Advocate and is a divorce financial analyst and a Certified Valuation Analyst (“CVA”).
I have worked on hundreds of marital dissolution cases over the past ten years that were predominantly settled through alternative dispute resolution in addition to providing expert witness testimony. My experience in the field of marital dissolution includes business and asset valuation, income and expense analyses, separate property tracings, executive compensation, and related equity awards, commercial and residential real estate economic analyses, post-divorce budgeting, division of assets, calculating support arrears, income available for support analyses and other financial analyses needed for marital dissolution or post-judgment cases.
I bring over 35 years of experience in the field of finance with extensive expertise in business and asset valuation, corporate and asset purchases, sales and financings across multiple industries and asset classes, financial modeling and budgeting, and distilling and presenting complex financial analyses. I am also an alternative assets specialist on topics such as private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and real estate to name the key types, and provide unique expertise to clients with complex financial assets.
Sara Campos is a Visiting Professor and Clinical Director of the Loyola Center for Conflict Resolution (LCCR) at LMU Loyola Law School, an attorney, and a certified bilingual mediator. Originally trained at LCCR as a law student in 1998. Since then, becoming the director, directing community and court-affiliated mediation programs, and trainer, teaching Mediation in English and Spanish. She also teaches Mediation Advocacy, which trains students on how to represent clients in mediation.
As a Latina, she adds diversity and brings the perspective of a person working in and believing in the traditional mediation model yet her legal training allows her to understand and appreciate other models as well. She is in a unique position to utilize her legal, bilingual/bicultural skills and knowledge in assisting litigants to resolve their disputes through this process.
When COVID-19 led to court closures and the continuance of all civil matters, more individuals and businesses than ever have been clamoring for the benefits of ADR, especially remote mediation. Thankfully, Ms. Campos had been facilitating family law mediations via Skype since 2014 and was able to seamlessly transition LCCR into a remote mediation model.
Under Ms. Campos’ Directorship, LCCR created and began the Landlord/Tenant Options Counseling Project assisting landlords and tenants in navigating their options regarding eviction-connected issues. The Project was among the institutions recognized by the White House for responding to Attorney General Merrick’s Call to Action to the Legal Profession to address the housing and eviction crisis and help increase housing stability and access to justice in their communities.
In 2019 Ms. Campos received the LLS award for leadership and commitment to LCCR and the people it serves. She also received the Just the Beginning-Los Angeles Legal Institute (JTB) Leadership Award of Excellence. Ms. Campos along with another colleague received 2005, 2012, and 2018 Mediation Case of the Year Awards from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Ms. Campos holds memberships with several organizations dedicated to mediation, such as Southern California Mediation Association, ABA Dispute Resolution Section, and National Association for Community Mediation. She served two terms on NAFCM’s Board of Directors.
She has participated in numerous mediation panels including the Second Appellate District Court Panel, LA Superior Court panel, EEOC and DFEH panels doing employment discrimination matters, and Centinela Youth Services Victim-Offender and Family Panels.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of the HighConflict Institute in San Diego, California. He pioneered the High Conflict Personality Theory (HCP) and has become an expert on managing disputes involving people with high conflict personalities. He was the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center for 15 years, a Certified Family Law Specialist lawyer representing clients in family court for 15 years, and a licensed clinical social worker therapist with over 12 years of experience. Bill serves on the faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law in California and is a Conjoint Associate Professor with the University of Newcastle Law School in Australia. He has been a speaker and trainer in over 35 U.S. states and 13 countries. He is the author or co-author of over 20 books, manuals, and workbooks. He is
co-host of the podcast It’s All Your Fault that he co-hosts with Megan Hunter, MBA, and has a popular blog on the Psychology Today website with over 6 million views.
Bruce Fredenburg, M.S., LMFT, with Board Certification in Clinical Hypnosis and an EMDR therapist has been a licensed therapist since 1982. He has extensive training in mediation and in the interdisciplinary team model of collaborative practice. He also is trained and experienced in the management of chronic pain, dealing with trauma, chemical dependency and addictions. As one of the founding members of Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County (CDSOC) in 2003, he serves as a Divorce Coach, Child Specialist and Case Manager. Bruce currently serves as Chair of CDSOC’s Training and Education Luncheons Committee, which provides monthly training for the practice group. He also currently serves on the Board Of Directors for CP Cal and is a member of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. Bruce is a frequent trainer at the annual conferences of CP Cal, IACP, AFCC and other professional conferences throughout California. He has appeared on the Time Warner Public television series “How to Get a Divorce”. He is the author of Four Audio Learning Programs: “Men and Women: How to Understand Each Other”, “Take the Pain Out of Change”, “Anxiety Solution” and “Sleep Solution” (for insomnia). Bruce was recruited to create and teach parenting classes for Adoptive and Foster Parents for County of Orange Social Services Agency. He has published articles on Male-Female Communication for “Sharing Ideas” a national magazine dedicated to professional speakers, trainers and meeting planners. An award-winning speaker, he has presented training programs for corporations, government agencies, schools, and professional associations since 1989. In April 2018 Collaborative Practice California (CP Cal) awarded Bruce the Eureka Award, which recognizes those who have made significant contributions and demonstrated an abiding dedication to establishing and sustaining Collaborative Practice in California.
He is the co-author of the book Home Will Never Be the Same Again: A Guide for Adult Children of Gray Divorce. For a complete listing of his collaborative practice training and teaching workshops please visit www.CollaborativePractice.com the website of the Academy of Collaborative Professionals, and click on the “Locate a Collaborative Professional near you” link. Also please visit his profile on the website www.cdsoc.com/member-profiles/bruce-fredenburg/.
Carol Hughes, Ph.D., LMFT, is a California licensed psychotherapist and board-certified hypnotherapist, and an EMDR therapist who has been in private practice in Laguna Hills, CA, since 1983. As one of the founding members of Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County (CDSOC), since 2003 she has provided services as a Divorce Coach, Child Specialist and Team/Case Manager. Since 2007 Carol has served on the Board of Directors of CDSOC and is currently serving as the Training and Education Chair. She has extensive training in mediation and in the interdisciplinary team model of collaborative practice. She frequently trains and mentors collaborative practitioners, has appeared on the Time Warner Public television series “How to Get a Divorce” and is a frequent trainer at the annual conferences of CP Cal, IACP, AFCC and other professional conferences throughout California. Carol is also a co-founder of the Collaborative Divorce Education Institute, a non-profit organization, whose mission is to educate the public about Collaborative Divorce, as well as to provide quality training for collaborative divorce professionals in the Southern California area. In April 2011 Collaborative Practice California (CP Cal) awarded Carol the Eureka Award, which recognizes those who have made significant contributions and demonstrated an abiding dedication to establishing and sustaining Collaborative Practice in California. Carol has also served as a CP Cal Delegate and is a member of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.
She is the co-author of the book Home Will Never Be the Same Again: A Guide for Adult Children of Gray Divorce. For a complete listing of her collaborative practice training and teaching workshops please visit www.CollaborativePractice.com, the website of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, and click on the “Locate a Collaborative Professional near you” link. In addition, please visit her website at www.DivorcePeacemaking.com.
Josh Kershenbaum, Esq., is a dedicated Peacemaker with extensive training and experience in both Mediation and Collaborative Law. He earned certifications in both Negotiation and Mediation at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and completed additional Mediation training through the Good Shepherd Mediation Program. Josh trained in Divorce & Family Mediation with mediation luminaries Forrest (“Woody”) Mosten and Susan Guthrie at the acclaimed Mosten Guthrie Academy, where he is now on the training faculty. He is a member of the Collaborative Law Professionals of Southeast Pennsylvania, the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators.
Josh brings over 20 years of experience and expertise in the areas of education and special education law to his Mediation and Collaborative Divorce practices. He devotes much of his time to helping parents of children and adults with special needs navigate their divorces through Mediation and Collaborative Practice. He also continues to help parents, students, school districts, and higher education institutions resolve special education and other conflicts through Mediation.
A dynamic and engaging teacher and trainer, Josh has trained hundreds of professionals at numerous professional conferences around the country for attorneys, parents, educators, school administrators, teachers, and students on a variety of topics related to special education law, Mediation, and conflict resolution. Most recently, he was a conference presenter for the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP), the Academy of Special Needs Planners (ASNP), the Council for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Education (CADRE), the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA), as well as for numerous professional and community organizations. He has been a guest on several programs on National Public Radio, and on the popular podcasts, Divorce and Beyond (Susan Guthrie), Surviving Divorce (Kate Anthony) and Good Law Bad Law (Aaron Freiwald).
Josh began his legal career as an Associate at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, LLC in Philadelphia. He went on to found and grow one of Pennsylvania’s premier, boutique law firms dedicated to representing the legal rights of children with special needs. Josh later served as Senior Counsel for Alternative Dispute Resolution for one of the region’s most well-respected family law firms, before returning to solo-practice as a Mediator and Collaborative divorce professional. He earned his law degree, cum laude, from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law in the Evening Division while working full-time and raising his son. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Amherst College, where he studied psychology and neuroscience as an undergraduate. Before practicing law, Josh was a public elementary school teacher in Newton, Massachusetts, where he also served as a Board member for Greater Boston PFLAG. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his family of five humans and three rescue cats.
Erin Levine is the CEO and founder of Hello Divorce, a venture capital backed legal technology company that makes divorce easier, kinder and more affordable through a guided online experience that combines easy-to-use digital tools with expert help from financial advisors, life coaches, mediators and lawyers.
Erin gained experience as a lawyer, mediator, private judge, Certified Family Law Specialist and owner of Levine Family Law Group. Her innovative approach to the delivery of legal services has been acknowledged by the legal industry and beyond with recognition from Forbes, Vice, Above the Law, TechCrunch and Business Insider. She has received awards that include American Bar Association’s James I Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering, ABA Journal’s Legal Rebel, Duke University School of Law’s Legal Tech Accelerator; Grand Prize, FastCase50’s honoree, Clio’s Reisman Award for Legal Innovation and the Pro Bono Leadership award from Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Erin believes that marriage can be a success even as it ends but that too often fear and shame get amplified during the legal process leading to a long, messy and expensive ordeal. It is her vision that we change the experience of divorce for the better by providing access to a clear, actionable path that is rooted in fairness and free from the barriers and biases that plague our justice system.
Laura graduated with her law degree from the University of British Columbia in 1984 and spent the first 20 years of her career as a very successful trial lawyer in Vancouver, Canada. She began to shift her focus to mediation in the late 1990s and has since acquired over 350 hours of training in alternative dispute resolution from such prestigious institutions as The Justice Institute of British Columbia and the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine.
In addition to her robust family mediation practice, Laura is a skilled speaker, trainer and mentor. She typically mediates over 70 divorces a year and is praised by her clients for her ability to offer up creative options, her calming presence, clear ability to educate, inform, and create a safe and productive environment for successful family mediation.
Cynthia is highly regarded for her ability to bring together families in conflict. Her
sensitivity and active listening skills make her stand out as an exceptional family
meeting facilitator, elder care family mediator, and communication strategist.
Jennifer M. Segura, J.D., CDFA® is a professional family mediator and a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst.® She is the co-owner of West Coast Family Mediation Center, Inc. and has been mediating family cases since 2008. After spending many years helping couples to dissolve their marriage, she realized that she had gained a lot of insight as to why couples separate and how marriages break-down. After hearing the same stories repeat over and over, she knew the knowledge she had gained could help couples save their marriage if she could get to them before the breakdown started. Jennifer focuses on two areas, helping couples to dissolve their marriages peacefully, should that be the path they want to remain on. And secondly, she works with couples who wish to try an alternative to traditional therapy to save their marriage. The goal is always to help couples find a way to move onto their next chapter as amicably as possible, whatever that may be, with the least amount of negative impact on the children.
Amanda D. Singer, Esq., MDR, CDFA® is a professional family mediator and co-owner of West Coast Family Mediation Center. She is also a licensed attorney and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. She works to help families improve communication, solve problems and reach agreements while staying out of court and works with clients all throughout California. She has a focus and interest on premarital mediation as well as training other mediators on the service. Amanda was the past Vice President of the Academy of Professional Family Mediators and was the awardee of the 2022 APFM Outstanding Professional Family Mediator Award. She is a member of the State Bar of California and actively involved in Lawyers Club of San Diego.
Zach is a lender with over 30 years of experience, specializing in divorce related mortgage solutions. He has been on panels and a speaker for SCMA FMI events in the past.
He knows the divorce guidelines and paperwork and works closely with mediators and CDFA’s to help folks buy each other out or if they need to sell, get them ready to buy something on their own post- divorce.
Zach has recently been interviewed in a “Divorce and Beyond” Podcast with Susan Guthrie and featured in CDFA Barbara Norman’s New Book “How to be Happily Divorced: Advice for Any Woman Who is Ending a Marriage and Wanting to Rebuild Life on Her Terms.”
You can easily find him on any of his social media sites and www.zachtaylormortgages.com.
Crystal Williams is a Mediator and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) consultant. She has a Mediation company, White & Williams ADR Services, LLC where she specializes in Special Education Dispute resolution. Her areas of expertise include IEP facilitation, conflict management coaching, professional development, parent engagement and trauma informed practices.
Crystal has facilitated hundreds of IEP meetings in multiple charter school districts across Southern California and the Inland Empire during her 13 year career as an Education Specialist.
Crystal completed her Masters of Dispute Resolution at University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law. Crystal has completed additional Mediation training through Waymakers Dispute Resolution Services. She also worked as an Adjunct Instructor for the Learning Rights Law Center for 5 years in their Training Individuals for Grassroots Education Reform (T.I.G.E.R) program helping parents understand the IEP process and fostering the tools of families in need, so that they may successfully navigate within the special education system.
She has Master of Arts from Claremont Graduate University in Teacher Education where she also earned her Mild/Moderate and Moderate/ Severe special education credentials. She has been an educator for the past 15 years, in the Elementary, Middle, High School and Community College and University setting. Currently, she is a Social Justice Education Professor in the graduate school programs at both Claremont Graduate University and University of Redlands.
Additionally, she earned a Master of Arts Degree from Argosy University in Forensic Psychology with a concentration in treatment. She received her BA in Social Science with emphasis in Psychology along with a double minor in Children and Families in Urban America and Psychology and LAW from The University of Southern California.
Debra Hamilton is the principal at Hamilton Law and Mediation, PLLC, (HLM). HLM uses understanding based alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methodologies to transform disagreements over animals in divorce and beyond. Debra facilitates neutral discussions between the parties providing them the opportunity to choose peaceful conversation over litigation when deciding who gets the pet.
Debra is an international speaker and best-selling author of Nipped in the Bud-Not in the Butt-How to Use Mediation to Resolve Conflicts over Animals. She is a co-author of Onward and Upward: A Guide For Getting Through New York Divorce & Family Law Issues. She has an internationally received podcast, Why Do Pets Matter and holds an international pet planning community call, The MAAP Plan, every Wednesday evening at 6:30 PM US-ET. The MAAP Plan helps community members navigate the journey their pet takes when they can’t care for It.
She is the go to person for information regarding the use of mediation in disagreements involving animals for the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Huffington Post and US News and World Report.
She breeds owns and shows Irish Setters and Long haired standard Dachshunds under the prefix, Rumraisin.