Before Hiring A Military Divorce Attorney
Hiring the wrong lawyer for a military divorce is like bringing a dull blade to a gunfight. California rules collide with federal statutes, one typo on a pension order can cost you six figures, and your spouse’s command won’t wait for civilian counsel to figure out acronyms.
Before you sign a retainer, treat the first meeting like a job interview where you are the boss. The answers you hear in the next thirty minutes will decide whether you keep your TRICARE, your share of retirement pay, and sometimes your security clearance. Print this list, take notes, and do not accept vague replies.
Experience Questions That Separate Pros From Pretenders
- How many military pension division orders did you file last year and what percentage were rejected by DFAS?
- Can you name the three payment centers where DFAS processes retired pay?
- Have you argued a custody motion by video hearing while one parent was deployed?
- What is the earliest date you have ever gotten an expedited hearing under California Family Code 3047?
- Do you keep blank DD 2293 forms in your cloud or do you draft from scratch each time?
If the attorney hesitates on any of the above, stand up and walk out. A real military divorce lawyer will rattle off those answers like a staff sergeant calling cadence. We track our DFAS rejection rate in real time and it sits at two percent for the past three years, far below the national average of fifteen.
Fee Questions That Prevent Nasty Surprises
Military divorces often involve discovery across multiple states and time zones, so hourly rates can explode. Ask whether the firm offers a flat fee for pension division work and what triggers additional charges.
Find out if you will pay for paralegal time spent correcting DFAS rejections, because some firms bill that back to the client even when the error was theirs. And demand a written estimate for expert witnesses such as actuaries who value retirement points. We cap pension division fees at a flat four thousand dollars unless the case goes to trial, and we swallow the cost of DFAS corrections if our language was at fault.
Also ask how they handle retainers when the service member stops paying due to a pay glitch. A good firm will front the shortfall and chase the money, rather than dropping your case midstream. And yes, that happens more than you think when finance offices shuffle paperwork during a permanent change of station.
Logistics Questions That Save Months
Finally, drill down on communication. Will the attorney answer your emails personally or farm them out to a junior associate? How quickly do they return calls when you are nine hours ahead in Kuwait? Do they have a secure client portal that works on government computers with strict firewalls? These details decide whether your case moves forward or stalls while you wait for someone stateside to wake up.
And one more thing… ask who covers court hearings if your lawyer gets sick. Some solo practitioners have no backup, which means a continuance and another six weeks of uncertainty. Our firm pairs every client with a lead attorney and a second chair so hearings proceed even if one of us is deployed to trial elsewhere.
Ready to put us through the wringer? Schedule your free interview here and bring every question on this list. We will answer them face to face, no sales pitch, just straight facts so you can decide if we earn the job.
