Westampton, NJ Divorce Law Firms & Lawyers

You NEED to schedule a consultation with a divorce law specialist - not simply a lawyer that also handles divorce matters to better understand your rights and whether the proposed consent order makes sense for you. I dont know if you are already divorced and in your divorce agreement, you waived your claim to alimony or whether you were supposed to get a larger share of the division of your husband's pension plan as part of a support agreement and without knowing all of those details, its impossible for me or any other family law specialist to offer you guidance. As a general statement, in the division of assets in a divorce ( equitable distribution), the marital poriton of retirement assets are divided and you can start off with the presumption that the marital portion will be divided equally by either a roll over into an IRA account in your name or through a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO). If being divided by QDRO, the proposed form of order will tell the plan admin how to divide the benefits and whether you are entitled to what is called the joint and survivor option as well as the preretriement survivor benefits ( most plans permit both types of options to be elected). It is impossible to say whehter the proposed QDRO presented to you has been done correctly or whether it was done wrong. You need to have a competent family law specialist look at it and look at your agreement, etc to see if the other side is playing it straight with you or not.  Since this is a benefit that may pay you money for the balance of your life, I would find the money to pay for a competent consultation to review the material. 

This appears to be a "no fault" divorce rather than an "uncontested" divorce.? There is a difference in the two.? Generally speaking, judges would rather have the parties come to agreements on everything, rather than the judge have to make a decision on any issues.? It appears as though the two of you have worked out all of your issues and I would be quite surprised if the judge made any changes to your agreement.? My guess is that the judge is probably going to sign an agreed order granting the divorce and making the agreements that the parties have already reached be a part of the order.