The Military Divorce Handbook (ePub)

Now completely revised and significantly expanded, The Military Divorce Handbook continues to be the go-to resource for understanding the issues involved and effectively representing military personnel and their spouses in domestic situations--divorce, separation, custody, support, and division of property. This timely and much-needed addition to a family lawyer's library is both comprehensive and practical, covering all aspects of representing servicemembers and their spouses in divorce in an accessible, easy-to-use format.

When a divorce action involves a military client, there are special issues that arise which make these cases more difficult. The Military Divorce Handbook guides you through the complexities of all aspects of representing military personnel or their spouses to help you provide competent and thorough representation for your client. Key chapters explain the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), military tax issues, and the important issue of dividing military retirement benefits. Also covered are the difficult and increasingly important issues of custody and domestic violence involving servicemembers.

Explaining complex issues in clear, current and concise language, Mark E. Sullivan provides numerous Practice Tips throughout the text to make your practice easier and more efficient. Relevant appendices are included at the end of the chapter, and in this two-volume edition, hundreds of additional pages of additional material are available to readers online. This fully updated edition includes extensive new information, including:

• An expanded section about rules and resources for getting documents from the government under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act


• A new glossary of cases on the SRCA, a chart showing the new statutory sections for the Act since its codification by Congress in 2015, and new information on how to search the Defense Department's on-line database for whether a party is serving in the military


• A section-by-section analysis of the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act and an expanded section on international kidnaping remedies and the Hague Abduction Convention


• Resources on domestic abuse and the Family Advocacy Program, a section on Article 128b of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that makes domestic violence a new criminal offence, and information on representation for sexual assault victims and compensation for domestic-abuse victims


• New sections on the Blended Retirement System and the Supreme Court's Howell decision and VA indemnification, new rules about the amendment to the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act which freezes the divisible pension on the date of divorce (the Frozen Benefit Rule), resources for understanding military retired pay, and an expanded section on reduction in grade at retirement due to misconduct