Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about the differences between a military divorce scenario versus a standard type of divorce that's filed and perhaps some of the unique differences. Of course, everyone knows that there is no such thing as obtaining a divorce or legal separation decree from a military court. That's not something that's covered by the military code of justice. So, the individual states, all 50 states in the United States, have divorce laws and if residency requirements are met, then the state where the parties live will have jurisdiction to move forward with what they call a civilian divorce.

In the military, as an example, there are rules that apply to separation, family separation. In the civilian court, the rules refer to spousal support and child support. Sometimes in the military cases, the military authorities will order a soldier to pay family separation support before the civilian court ever enters any of its orders for child support or maintenance. Additionally, when you are dealing with housing, your lawyer should be familiar with what the rules are for housing, how housing is paid, whether it's base housing or off post housing and whether there's a housing allowance that may be pertinent to the civilian divorce case. In all these kinds of cases, an attorney with lots of experience dealing with military matters, military questions of income, base pay, and other kinds of allowances is going to be important to know.