The Florida Academy of Professional Mediators has awarded its Mel Rubin Memorial Award of Merit and the Susan Dubow Service Award.

Deborah Beylus is the winner of the Mel Rubin Memorial Award of Merit. Beylus has been certified by the Florida Supreme Court for over 10 years. She is certified in family, circuit civil, county, and dependency. A former senior equity analyst for a finance firm, she is also a certified divorce financial analyst. In addition to her mediation practice (South Florida Mediation Services), she has served as a guardian ad litem, a primary mediation trainer, a member of the Florida Supreme Court’s Mediation Qualifications Discipline and Review Board, and as a FINRAarbitrator. She is also the current president of the Florida Academy of Professional Mediators.

Jeanne Pothoff is the winner of the Susan Dubow Service Award. Pothoff has worked for the court mediation and arbitration program in the 17th Circuit for over 20 years and has been the court’s ADR director since 2008. Pothoff was involved in the implementation of the first dependency mediation program for the 17th Circuit in the mid 1990s. In 2017, Pothoff collaborated with the administrative judge to expand dependency mediation services for visitation and other issues. Pothoff has received multiple awards for her contributions to child welfare. She oversaw the grant for instant family mediation, in which family cases are sent to mediation directly from any phase of a hearing or trial process. Pothoff has helped coordinate mediation services at credit card docket blitzes and pro se divorce days. During the remote work of the state courts, Pothoff  worked with court administration and the judiciary in establishing and implementing remote ADR operations. This included testing the pretrial docket remote operations.