Fall 2009-#7. Don't Know Your BAH II From Your TAMP?.

• Author: Reviewed by Kenneth P. Barnhart, Esq.

Vermont Bar Journal

2009.

Fall 2009-#7.

Don't Know Your BAH II From Your TAMP?

THE VERMONT BAR JOURNALVolume 35, No. 3Fall 2009Don't Know Your BAH II From Your TAMP?(fn1)Consult The Military Divorce HandbookReviewed by Kenneth P. Barnhart, Esq.According to the Department of Defense, military divorce rates are on the rise. For 2008, the overall military divorce rate rose 0.1% to 3.4%, with a total of 25,750 marriages ending in divorce.(fn2)Those numbers certainly are consistent with the experience of the Maryland firm where I practiced for the past four years. Every year we seemed to see more and more service members with family law matters. It did not take us long to realize that issues like custody, support, and pension division present themselves very differently in cases involving service members. That is where The Military Divorce Handbook comes into play.

Subtitled "A Practical Guide to Representing Military Personnel and Their Families," The Military Divorce Handbook offers a detailed treatment of each of these issues and much, much more. Author Mark E. Sullivan, himself a retired Army lawyer who received the Legion of Merit as "the Army's foremost authority in family law," capably shares the extensive knowledge and experience he gained over his thirty-four-year career. Sullivan presents his material in a logical approach that demonstrates hisfamiliarity with the practical problems facing counsel in a military divorce. He begins at the very beginning with a section on locating and serving the soon-to-be defendant service member. Then he confidently works through chapters on the Service Members Civil Relief Act, Custody and Visitation, Family Support, Domestic Violence, Divorce, Family Law Tax Issues, and Pension and Property Division. Each unit introduces basic concepts, provides citations to the applicable statutes and military regulations, offers practice tips, and then delves more deeply into some of the arcane, but vital, principles of military family law. The book includes a CD-ROM with appendices in both PDF and...