Mediation for families who own a business together.
Long Table is a firm of lawyers and mediators for disputes inside family companies and estates: brothers and sisters, parents and children, and the in-laws who came along, all owning one business. Before anyone files anything, the whole family sits at one table. What is agreed there is written up as a family agreement.
The table
Dafna, a lawyer and certified mediator, and a team of four. Each of us is one chair at your table.
Half an hour, by phone or at the office, within a week of the first call. What is said there stays there.
Together
Then everyone at one table.
One three-hour session, on a Tuesday or Thursday morning. We are not one sibling's lawyers against another. In mediation, we work for the whole table.
In writing
What was agreed is written down.
A family agreement, in words everyone at the table understands, ready to sign and to have approved. Court only if the table did not work.
We are not one sibling's lawyers against another. In mediation, we work for the whole table.
What we do
A dispute in a family that owns a business is two disputes at once: one about the business and one about the family. We work on both together.
Mediation inside a family company
Who runs it, who works in it and who only holds shares; salaries, dividends, and what happens when someone wants out. Everyone with a stake sits at the table, including those who never worked there.
Mediation over an estate between heirs
A will someone feels is unfair, a business left to one child and the house to the rest, or no will at all. We can start before anyone has gone to the probate registrar.
A half-hour call with each heir or partner, before the joint session
Each person tells us alone what matters to them and what they would rather not say in front of everyone. Within a week of the first contact.
A three-hour joint session, on a Tuesday or Thursday morning
One table, an agenda everyone has seen in advance, and a break halfway. Family abroad join on screen.
Drafting the family agreement from what was agreed
We draft it and send it to everyone, and each person can show it to their own lawyer before signing.
Brothers and sisters, parents and children, spouses and in-laws, and partners who are nearly family. Anyone with a share in the business or the estate.
What we are not
Not anyone's lawyers against the others. If mediation fails, we do not represent any of you in court afterwards.
Who we work with
The business's accountants, valuers, each person's own lawyer, and sometimes a family therapist who already knows you.
The family businesses
Garages
Restaurants
Rental property
Food plants
Farms
Shops
Insurance agencies
Print shops
Import and distribution
Small hotels
Garages
Restaurants
Rental property
Food plants
Farms
Shops
Insurance agencies
Print shops
Import and distribution
Small hotels
The path in time
Day 1A first half-hour call with whoever called first.
By day 7Each heir or partner talks to us alone, half an hour.
