Colorado Springs Military Divorce Attorney

Handling Complex Divorce Matters for Service Members in Colorado

Clawson & Clawson, LLP, strives to deliver first-rate legal services quickly, efficiently, and aggressively. We are dedicated to the philosophy that the most effective and cost-efficient legal services are provided by attorneys who maintain their integrity and communicate honestly with our Military and Civil Service clients. Our Colorado Springs divorce lawyers have helped hundreds of military families in the Colorado Springs area, and we can help you as well. We also offer a military discount. This is a small token of our appreciation for your service to this Country.

Understanding the Military Divorce Process

Due to specifics in Colorado State law, if you are an active service member in the United States Military, online divorce proceedings may be significantly altered. For the most part, this is due to the fact that military personnel have specialized protections and rules granted by the Federal Government.

The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) prevents active duty members of the armed forces from being sued or beginning divorce proceedings while they are on active duty and for 60 days following the end of their service. There are also other laws, such as the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act (USFSPA), which provide for former spouses of military members. While married, these spouses had access to healthcare, pensions, and other benefits. The USFSPA outlines regulations for the continuation of benefits, the division of a military pension, and other details that concern military couples.

The objective of these safeguards was to keep military members at their workplace – which could be at a training camp across the country, or a battlefront in another continent – rather than pulling them all the way back to their residency for legal issues. For example, a member of the armed forces is unlikely to be penalized for not providing immediate response to court summons and similar instances.

Online Military Divorces in Colorado

While you are on active duty and doing your best to serve and protect the country, filing for divorce can be next to impossible, or at least incredibly inconvenient, even if you do so online. Our military divorce lawyers in Colorado Springs are here to help you through this process by utilizing their years of combined experience and total familiarity with the system. We regularly accept cases that start via email correspondences from a service member half a world away. We also try to keep things simple for you so you can focus on other tasks at hand; once you sign and mail one physical fee agreement to us, we can handle everything else using email or telephone communications.

Jurisdiction and Military Service

Military personnel who call Colorado home are frequently relocated to bases in other areas of the country, and as a consequence they often reside in several different locations over the course of a short period of time. As a result, it is often difficult for a family law court to establish jurisdiction over the case involving such a person. The issue is even more complicated when the geographical proximities of the parties involve minor children.

This brings up challenges relating to the residency of the parties and/or deployment that will require help from a skilled legal professional. A qualified lawyer can help you resolve these legal challenges and more when it comes to the custody of the children (now known as parental responsibility). Don't make a move without knowing your legal rights!

In general, military personnel are allowed to have two types of residences, their legal residence and the residence in which they are stationed. If they are separated from their spouse, then we may have to factor in the legal residence of the spouse as well. Here at Clawson & Clawson, LLP, our team handles family law and personnel cases for military divorce in Colorado and in any other state or country, even if the client does not live in Colorado or attend hearings physically in Colorado.

About Military Retired Pay

There are several complicated variables surrounding military divorce laws and property rights, including the division of military retirement. The courts have adopted certain methods of calculating the spouse's portion of the military member's retirement based upon several components. Current laws have adopted a formula to arrive at an equation awarding the spouse their percentage share of the military retirement based upon a host of variables related to the length of service versus and the length of the marriage. Once this is determined, the Court can arrive at a percentage marital share that the spouse would be entitled to receive.

Sometimes, however, the parties have significant assets. There are other creative ways to arrive at an equitable division of the marital estate instead of dividing the military retirement, and our team can help you determine the best method for your situation. For instance, the parties may utilize the services of an accountant to assign a present value to the award. The accountant would take the future retirement and calculate, based upon mortality and other factors, what the retirement would be worth today.

For the reasons outlined above, a divorce involving military personnel is often far more complicated than might otherwise be the case. If you are involved in such a case, place your trust in the hands of a divorce lawyer who has experience navigating the complexities involved. We proudly represent armed forces personnel from Ft. Carson, Peterson AFB, Schriever AFB, USAF, Cheyenne Mountain Air Station Academy, Buckley AFB, and United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM).