I am looking forward to May 3rd when I will be presenting the topic “Family Law and Legal Malpractice” at the National Legal and Medical Malpractice Conference sponsored by THE AMERICAN BOARD OF PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY ATTORNEYS. This organization provides board-certification for attorneys who specialize in medical malpractice and legal malpractice.
The conference is at PARK LANE HOTEL in New York City. See https://www.abpla.org for more information.
One area of legal malpractice in divorce that seems to occur too often is when a lawyer fails to investigate and/or protect retirement benefits to which their clients may be entitled. I have seen this type of malpractice time and time again.
This situation is particularly troubling for women who seek to leave violent relationships, according to the national Pension Rights Center, because without securing their financial rights, these women may have to stay financially dependent on their abusers. In fact, financial dependence is one of the top reasons why women don’t leave abusive relationships, as Pension Rights Center states on its website: “Ensuring that women can access retirement benefits after divorce may help provide women the freedom they need to leave a violent relationship.”
The story reported by Lawyers Mutual Liability Insurance Co., in North Carolina, is typical of what I see in my practice: “An attorney representing the wife had a duty to protect the wife’s interest in the pension plan by filing a QDRO and by notifying the husband’s employer of the restriction with respect to the survivor beneficiary status.”
[ “QDRO” is the term for domestic relations order signed by a judge that have been accepted by a retirement plan sponsored by a private employer.]
The article continued: “Unfortunately, the wife’s attorney did nothing to protect her client’s interests. As a result the husband was free to change the beneficiary of his retirement income to his new wife’s name, which he did immediately upon remarriage. He died shortly after his remarriage and retirement, and the first wife lost all rights to the benefits she had bargained for through her attorney. The wife’s attorney was on the hook for her client’s lost benefits.”
The take-away from the example above is that divorcing women need to take a pro-active stance with their attorneys to make sure their pension rights are protected during the divorce. That might not be so easy, however. Creating proper QDROs can be very complicated. For that reason, I rely on an outside firm to do the work: Lexington Pension Consultants, in New York — a company that prepares Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDROs) and Pension Valuations. For more information here is the website:https://www.lexpen.com/qdros
If you have had a problem with obtaining your pension rights in divorce, I’d like to hear your story.