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If you do not want to look for a attorney to draft your QDRO, do not be afraid to go it alone by using one of the sample QDROs included in this book. It’s likely that the QDROs in this book are vastly superior to those used by many divorce attorneys. Most divorce attorneys are not familiar with the QDRO laws and will, perhaps in their own ignorance, rely on a QDRO template provided to them by your ex-husband’s employer. You should understand that most companies do not care about your QDRO rights. Because of this, most model QDROs provided by the company itself are “plain vanilla” and often do not include many protective clauses that should be included in your QDRO. If you are somewhat reluctant to pursue QDRO preparation on your own, you may want to show your attorney the sample QDROs contained in this book — why pay him or her to do independent QDRO research, when it’s right here in front of you? And by using the QDRO forms in this book, your legal fees could be substantially reduced. Remember one thing, however. I have drafted and reviewed more than 40,000 QDROs, yet even my QDROs are rejected from time to time. Do not be ovely alarmed if your QDRO is rejected. Stay diligent, and correct any deficiencies immediately on hearing back from the plan administrator.

Let’s assume that your divorce decree included language that awarded you 50 percent of the total account balance in your ex-husband’s 401(k) plan as of February 15, 2002 (your date of divorce). You could try using Sample 11 — which is meant to be used when assigning to an alternate payee 50 percent of the participant’s total account balance under a defined contribution plan.

If you do attempt to draft the QDRO yourself by using one of the samples in this book, remember, a QDRO is really a court order that is signed by the judge. When typing the QDRO, you should have available to you a copy of your original divorce decree. All court orders, including your QDRO and your original divorce decree, must have a caption at the top of the first page of the order. The caption is the top part of the court order that includes the name of the case, the number of the case, the name of the judge, and the name of the order. Also, a vertical line of parentheses usually divides the left part of the caption from the right part. Be sure to include a caption at the top of your QDRO. You can use the same caption as was used in your divorce decree, but where it says “Decree of Divorce” or something similar to that on the right-hand side of the caption, you should include the words “Qualified Domestic Relations Order” to show that the document you prepared is a QDRO and not the original decree of divorce.