DIVORCED VETERANS' GROUP HIRES LEGAL TEAM TO CONTEST EX-SPOUSES' RIGHTS TO THEIR RETIREMENT PAY

Tampa, FL August, 2003 - A group of divorced veterans has hired a legal team headed by Constitutional attorney Jonathan L. Katz of Silver Spring, Maryland, to protect their retirement pay from property division in divorce court.

Called the ULSG, LLC, the veterans' group contests the constitutionality of the Uniform Services Former Spouses' Protection Act (USFSPA). The twenty-year-old law undoes a Supreme Court ruling that protected veterans' retirement pay from being divided with ex-spouses in divorce court.

Over one thousand eight hundred divorced veterans from an estimated population of over 100,000 who are affected by this law have already joined the ULSG's challenge to the law. After a months-long search, the group has retained lawyers Jonathan L. Katz of Silver Spring, Maryland, and David J. Bederman of Atlanta to bring their cause to court.

Attorney Katz said: "Particularly troublesome is that the USFSPA does not even exempt veterans who joined the military before the law was ever passed. This amounts to an unconstitutionally retroactive application of the law, seeing that the law was passed only after the Supreme Court said that veterans' retirement pay could not be divided in divorce court."

The ULSG also points out that divorce court treatment of veterans' retirement pay varies tremendously depending on the state where the divorce takes place. Attorney Katz said that: "As a result, countless military members are thrust into a particular divorce court not because the servicemembers chose the particular state court, but because the government assigned them to the particular state. It is not fair that servicemembers' rights in their retirement pay be at the risk of the state where they are assigned to serve their country."
    
The ULSG's President Jack Crutchfield said: "Although this twenty-year-old law may have been passed with the intention of protecting the ex-spouses of male military members, the issue is no longer gender-based, as witnessed by the ever-growing number of female military members, including those like Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson who served in combat during the recent war in Iraq."

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Jonathan L. Katz, Attorney at Law
Lead Counsel for ULSG, LLC
Marks & Katz, LLC
1400 Spring Street, Suite 410
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Phone: (301) 495-4300
Fax: (301) 495-8815
E-mail: jon@markskatz.com

ULSG's website: http://usfspa-lawsuit.info
Marks & Katz's website: http://www.markskatz.com





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