We refer to these by the acronym "QDROs", pronounced "quadro" or plural "quadros". If you need a QDRO, you can thank the United States Congress for passing a law known as the Employees Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Congress enacted ERISA to protect retirement, pension and health-care plans from lawsuits. Sidney Childress has actually sued big corporations with this law for trying to cheat employees out of previously promised benefits.
The United States' Supreme Court has called the scope of ERISA "deliberately expansive". Basically, ERISA provides that no plan protected by it is bound to comply with any state court order. Divorces are granted in state court. Therefore, ERISA allows the Administrator of a retirement or pension plan to legally ignore your state-court award of community property. ERISA Plan Administrators will abide by the Divorce Decree and disburse a retirement or pension award directly to a former spouse only if a separate, special type of Order is entered in the divorce proceeding: a QDRO.
Every Plan Administrator, again thanks to ERISA and the United States Congress, can dictate their own specifications for how the QDRO must be drafted. ERISA subjects Plan Administrators to criminal liability if they mis-handle an ERISA plan. So try to understand if they are sometimes nit-picky and difficult to work with.
For a QDRO, a process of drafting, review and pre-approval occurs between the divorce attorney and the Plan Administrator, before a final form of QDRO is agreed on and entered by the state divorce court. This can be an unpredictable, time-consuming process.
The Childress Law Office charges $500 to prepare a QDRO or any special court-order needed to divide military retired pay. We recommend that, if possible, you look for ways to fairly divide your estate without a QDRO, such as giving one spouse more of another asset instead of part of an ERISA-protected plan. When The Childress Law Office is hired, our job is to help clients explore their options and make the best plans possible under the circumstances.
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