Military divorce issues involving pensions, retirement benefits etc., can be quite complicated especially if children are involved. While I concentrate in military law related issues, I do NOT handle military divorce matters because you not only need to know and understand the applicable State laws / procedures regarding divorce, child support, custody, etc., but also integrate federal law regarding military pensions / retirement into that equation. Furthermore, the attorney has to be knowledgeable enough to "educate" the Judge and often opposing counsel on these issues.

I suggest that you contact the California Bar Association's Lawyer Referral Services at:
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Public/LawyerReferralServicesLRS.aspx and try and get a referral to someone who is knowledgeable in these areas. Good Luck!

Thank you to both Mr. Bogan and Mr. Rehkopf. I have found it true that I need an attorney knowledgeable not just in CA state laws, but also in Military/Federal laws enough to "educate" all concerned parties (as Mr. Rehkopf put so nicely). Even the attorney I used for the legal separation in 2007 (which we purposely left out the division of any pensions until such time that a dissolution should occur) thought a QRDO had to be filed for the Military pension division, to which DFAS stated (via a phone conversation with me) that is not the case. This is exactly why I haven't retained an attorney yet, because I cannot seem to find one locally that truly understand the intricacies of Military divorce. I cannot afford to do this wrong, yet I cannot afford to pay an attorney to commute to the Central Valley from San Diego who does have such expertise. Again, thank you both for your help, suggestions and mostly for your valuable time! I sincerely am grateful.

You may want to look up in the Fairfield area near Travis AFB. That's a huge base and I'm sure someone in that area has the expertise you need - and, it's a lot closer than San Diego.