We interviewed four prospective mediators before deciding to hire Oran Kaufman. Our divorce mediation was difficult but Mr. Kaufman was both optimistic that we could find solutions and realistic about the facts on the ground. We found Oran to be intelligent, perceptive, and patient with us and he helped us disentangle from some heated and seemingly impossible deadlocks. Though it was never a stated goal of the mediation, my wife and I got through our divorce and we have remained friends - in part because of our clean and orderly mediation process.

I recently worked with Oran Kaufman to settle a separation agreement between myself and my long time partner with whom I have two children. I thought that he did a very good job, he was easy to communicate with, explained the process clearly and thoroughly and he seemed fair and impartial. I especially appreciated that he worked with us on our own timeline and did what he could to get the process done as quickly as possible from his end to save us money. I would absolutely recommend him for any mediation needs, especially since he is an experienced licensed attorney.

It is nice to have the chance to share my experience of working with Oran Kaufman through my/our divorce. While ours has been very amicable, it was also emotional and Oran was able to guide us through all the steps of the process. He was organized, approachable, easy to understand and very supportive. He was extremely fair and balanced, and remained committed to communicating equally with both of us, and not taking sides. I highly recommend him to anyone going through the divorce process.

If you are looking for a less expensive and more civil option to getting a separation or divorce than each of you hiring lawyers, Amherst Mediation Services and Oran Kaufman in particular is the way to go. Civility will be up to you, but Oran is skilled and knowledgeable in facilitating it. He walked us through the whole process, providing the right paperwork and answering any questions or concerns we emailed him in a timely manner.

He was extremely fair, making sure that we both had expressed what we needed to, and that we agreed to the terms of the separation agreement without taking any sides. He provided no opinions, just led us with how divorce works in Massachusetts, and what to expect at our court hearing (which I was very nervous about, but had no need to be, since he had well prepared us). Once we approached the judge, she looked down and realized we had been mediated by Oran Kaufman, and stated this would make the proceedings faster.

He was kind and mindful about our situation, and did not drag things out. He made sure things were situated and prepared in as few sessions as possible. My ex and I are grateful to Oran for making a difficult situation less stressful for us.

Oran offers a truly objective, professional, and comfortable service through what can be a very difficult process. His years of experience with the law is evident and he decides it in a way that properly educates his clients. The cost of services is fair and the process as efficient as one would like. I cannot recommend Amherst Mediation Services enough!

Oran was very professional and efficient and helped make my divorce process go as smoothly as can be expected. He provided all of the documentation and paperwork, including a checklist and a script to use at the court appointment if needed, which I particularly appreciated. In addition to being organized and efficient with the paperwork, he did a great job helping us to negotiate our agreement. At one point my ex and I were at an impasse where neither of us would budge on a particular point. Oran told us that we could each hire our own lawyer, and probably spend as much money as we were arguing over, or we could come to an agreement together. We ended up compromising. I consider that moment to be a crucial point in our divorce process. Thank you, Oran.

Simply put, Oran’s experience and expertise made the inevitably difficult process of divorce so much more manageable and forward-moving than it would have been otherwise. Oran offers a wide range of scheduling options; my ex-spouse and I work long hours on differing schedules, and Oran was always able to accommodate us when making appointments. Throughout the process, I was always so grateful for Oran’s extensive experience mediating divorcing couples with children, like us; he was able to offer numerous solutions to the various questions and snags that came up and gave us all the information we needed to make the decisions that would work best for our family. He prepared us well for the date of the court hearing, and every legal professional we worked with--from the administrative assistants filing our case, to the on-staff attorney at the Franklin County Justice Center, to the judge who ultimately granted our divorce-- commented on what an excellent job Oran always does writing up separation agreements. I couldn’t recommend Oran more highly to anyone seeking a mediation that is thorough, fair, and handled with the utmost in professionalism and care.

Our experience with Oran was a very positive one in what was to us an unknown and somewhat trying situation. Although we had agreed on most things, Oran was able to guide us through questions that we had not thought of and also review what we had agreed on. He was very professional, always including both of us in any communications and made it very clear that he was there to protect and guide each of us individually. The cost was so reasonable compared to what it would have been to each hire separate attorneys. When he had not heard from us in a little while he would email us to see where we were at and if he could help in any way. We have now completed our agreement and have done the filing with the papers he provided. He also gave us very specific instructions on what to do once we were ready to file and what to prepare for in court. I would highly recommend Oran as a mediator to anyone who is contemplating using the mediation process.

Oran made an uncomfortable situation as good as it could be. He spelled out what the process was going to be, approximately how much it would cost and gave us a realistic timeline all at the free initial consult! I was extremely happy with the experience and the end result. I highly recommend Amherst Mediation.

Easy process and saves money rather than hiring seapate attorneys
Attorney Kaufman was helpful and experienced in the art of negotiation and helped prepare me for what to expect in the courtroom

If there’s any chance that you can work things out amicably and avoid battling it out with lawyers, I highly recommend using Oran Kaufman’s services. Quite simply, he streamlines the whole process into a simple step-by-step, here’s what you do next kind of way. If the paperwork and record-keeping aspect is overwhelming to you, as it was to me, Oran is your guy. Not only does he do a fantastic job of organizing the process and taking you to the finish line, he’s a genuinely a nice guy. He’s objective, unbiased, and above all, he appears to take satisfaction in taking the sting out of an inherently unpleasant event. I’m telling you if you can suck up the ego and work things out, even come close to it, save the thousands on lawyer fees and go with Oran.

I can't say enough good things about working with Oran. My husband and I went to see him to craft a separation agreement for our divorce hearing, based on a recommendation, and I'm so glad we did. My husband and I were not in huge conflict with each other, but we were overwhelmed and stuck in some inertia about the detail-oriented paperwork involved, and concerned about being fair enough to each other in the divorce process.

I think Oran was a good choice over having indvidual attorneys, since attorneys would have been much more expensive and would have likely put us into an adversarial dynamic. With Oran, everything was out in the open (e.g. all emails between Oran and either one of us always were cc:ed to the other so that everybody knew what was going on), and he made the process feel collaborative and fair. He provided us with all the paperwork we needed to file for divorce (even providing the required sheets of pink paper to print out our financial statements!) and wrote our separation agreement for us, which was a huge relief for non-lawyers filing for divorce on our own. I am certain that his excellent work was in large part responsible for our divorce hearing taking less than ten minutes.

Oran was great at giving my husband and me all the information we needed to know in order to craft a separation agreement that was fair and agreeable to both of us, in language that was to the point and easy to understand. At his initial free consultation session, he asked about our priorities right at the beginning, so that he could give us a sense of the work and cost involved, and he pretty much stuck to that. He was patient with us and our foibles, yet firmly kept us on track, when he could have easily let us drag things out and charge us for more of his billable time. I felt like both my husband and I got the time in our meetings with Oran to talk to each other about what each of us wanted, and got informational support and creative ideas when we needed it. He was extremely responsive to phone calls and emails with questions along the way, sometimes getting back to us in less than five minutes. He is clearly devoted to his work and enjoys what he does, and it all puts you at ease. I highly recommend working with him, even if you aren't going through a messy conflict.

Oran did a great job guiding us through our divorce, which was fairly complicated. He was professional, helpful and flexible with appointments. Mediation is a great way to get things done with a minimum of conflict.

Oran is knowledgeable and friendly.
His "mediation first" approach really helps avoid a lot of hassle and trouble. He helped my ex and I rewrite our agreement to change custody arrangements. We needed this done quickly, and he helped us through the process. Really much nicer than trying to do this on our own, or going through separate attorneys, etc. It's also much cheaper this way since we split the cost of one lawyer rather than paying for separate lawyers.

My ex and I may have had an unusually amicable split, but Oran definitely smoothed over the tedium and formalities of getting our divorce. If you want to make a stab at collaborative, or at least civil, ending to your marriage, Oran can help you make it work.

My ex and I had put off filing for divorce for 6 years. Oran made the process simple and painless. We had a separation document within a few days and were ready to file after less than a month of initially meeting. he was thoughtful and made us look at things we had not really thought about. It was a great experience,.