The Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act is a law that has been in effect for years, designed to assist military members in various ways.  One of the ways it helps armed forces personnel is by preventing them from being subject to default judgments.  
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​What is a default judgment? When you file a lawsuit against someone, part of the process you must follow is to obtain service on them, which essentially means notifying them that they are being sued.  From the date they are served, they have 30 days to file a response at the Courthouse stating they wish to defend the lawsuit.  If those 30 days pass and they file nothing, you can then ask the Judge for a default judgment. Essentially, you are asking the Judge to grant you everything you requested in the lawsuit.
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​What effect does that have on my divorce?  To make your divorce as simple as possible, our system relies on default judgments. Since the case is uncontested and we are very careful only to ask the judge for a simple divorce, all our spouses are content with not filing anything and accepting a default judgment. But by law, a soldier or sailor cannot have a default judgment filed against them.
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So what can I do?​ Fortunately, we have a couple of options. One is to simply let the military member be the plaintiff in the lawsuit, rather than the defendant.  The other option is to have the military member sign and notarize an additional form that specifically waives their rights under the Act.  The only problem with that is that I am prohibited by my attorney's ethics from preparing that form.  They HAVE to get it from another attorney. Fortunately, military attorneys are available to soldiers at no cost for exactly this kind of thing.  They can locate and schedule an appointment with one search here: https://legalassistance.law.af.mil/. Most military attorneys are already familiar with this issue, but please feel free to have them contact my office with any questions they may have.