Vesting and Forfeitures
The plan likely has a vesting schedule for employer contributions. This means that even if contributions are made, they aren’t fully “owned” by the employee until a certain length of service. If the QDRO assigns a portion of unvested funds, and those funds are later forfeited, the alternate payee may not receive the expected amount.
One solution is to structure the order to only divide vested employer contributions as of the date of division. Another option is to award a fixed percentage of vested contributions, taking into account what may be forfeited later.

