Question:

Hi Jim, I love your mailbag. I am a new attorney and Veterans Corps Legal Fellow. I really appreciate how you answer questions about complicated matters in plain, easy to understand language. It is a skill I admire as I often find myself rambling in legalese and VA acronym alphabet soup before I catch myself. Anyway, I found your answer to one particular question extremely helpful about apportionment.

The problem is my supervisor doesn't believe me when I relay the information in your post and more experienced attorneys have never heard of "apportionment". I have tried looking up the regs on this, but haven't found any. Please Help!? Any help on pinning down regs or case law about this would be much appreciated. Thanks so much for what you do. You're awesome!

Jim's Reply:

I very much appreciate your kind words. Yes, I work hard to write much like I talk without resorting to words that mislead and confuse. Most of the veterans we serve aren't reading at a college level and I know this since I've taught adult literacy and comprehension. Throwing VA legalese at these folks should be a criminal offense but it isn't so here we are. I'll plug in some resources for you here.

• VA regulations:
• The Willick Law Group  (Attorney Willick is very responsive to questions from advocates)
• The VA statute

The M21-1MR is often called the Bible of Benefits Admin. Here is how apportionment happens.

Military divorce takes an already emotional and complex process and injects it with steroids. Good luck.