1. Employee and Employer Contributions
One of the first things to understand is that the participant’s account may include both employee contributions (which are always 100% vested) and employer contributions (which may be subject to a vesting schedule). This means that only a portion of the employer contributions may be available for division.
In the QDRO, we typically divide the account by assigning a dollar amount or percentage of the “vested balance” as of a particular date. Unvested employer contributions are usually forfeited if the participant leaves the company before the vesting schedule is complete.

