Retirement division isn’t a side issue. It’s the hidden time bomb in settlements—and it keeps coming back.
I recently had the privilege of presenting at the New York Judicial Seminar. It wasn’t a lecture. It was a real conversation. The dialogue was sharp, the questions were honest, and the takeaways were eye-opening.
A few hours later, I drove straight to Saratoga for the NYSBA Family Law Section conference, where the conversations continued. Some of the best ones happened while standing next to our sponsor table.
That’s when it clicked:
Judges and attorneys are facing the exact same challenge.
How do you handle retirement plans so they don’t come back to you—while making sure the division is actually accurate?
Right now, here’s what’s happening:
Retirement gets pushed aside while you focus on the house, custody, or the business.
Settlement language gets added last-minute, thinking it’s “standard.”
Then it boomerangs. Back to court. Back to you. Back to the client.
These are the questions I keep hearing—on both sides of the bench:
- Who calculates gains and losses, and when?
- What if the clause says “marital portion” but gives no dates or dollar values?
- How would you even know, for example, that Fidelity now treats Solo 401(k)s like IRAs—and won’t divide based on a historical valuation date? (Yep. Someone has to calculate gains and losses.)
- What’s the right order: valuation, language, or QDRO?
This is the cycle. And I’m here to help you break it.
That’s why I created the Settlement Language Lab.
It’s a simple, practical, no-cost working session for law firms ready to clean up retirement language—for good.
We’ll walk through how to correctly divide DC plans and IRAs.
You’ll receive a printable manual called the Settlement Language Instruction Playbook (SLIP). It’s not a slide deck. It’s a lawyer-friendly PDF you can actually use in active cases.
It will help you write enforceable language in plain English, avoid rework, and move cases forward with confidence.
Book your firm’s Lab here: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=9t-5Cwtk7EqcJmnl-1SrwpNstTLBMy5LhYad91yuoL9UNDhEQktQQVo0VjJVMThRVVVZRVdKNUIyQy4u&origin=lprLink&route=shorturl
Let’s stop the boomerangs and draft it right the first time.