04-13-2023 - The Perils and Complexities of Military Divorces
Family Law Section Meeting & CLE

Mark E. Sullivan is the principal of Law Offices of Mark E. Sullivan, P.A. in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has limited his trial practice to family law since 1981 and has been certified by the North Carolina State Bar as a Family Law Specialist since 1989. He is a former vice-chair of the Family Law Section, North Carolina Bar Association, and a former president of the North Carolina Chapter, American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Mr. Sullivan is a retired Army Reserve JAG colonel (34 years of commissioned service), and is the author of The Military Divorce Handbook, (ABA, 3rd Ed. 2019).

He was co-founder of the military committee of the North Carolina State Bar in 1981, and he has been a member of the committee or its director ever since. He is a past chair of the Military Committee of the ABA Family Law Section, and served on the ABA Working Group for the Protection of the Rights of Servicemembers in 2002-2003. He received the American Bar Association’s Grassroots Advocacy Award in 2014 for his work on military custody in helping to write the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act and getting military custody legislation enacted in over twenty states. He was a member of the Department of Defense panel of experts on revising the Former Spouses’ Protection Act in 1997. In 2022, Mark received the Solo and Small Firm Trainer Award by the American Bar Association Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Session. This award recognizes attorneys who have made significant contributions to educating lawyers or law students regarding the opportunities and challenges of a solo and small firm practice.

Mark Sullivan advises and assists fellow attorneys from across the country in drafting military pension division orders, deciding on the Survivor Benefit Plan, and resolving other military divorce issues. He has been accepted as an expert for military pension division for oral testimony in cases in eight states, and was recognized as a national expert in military pension division in a 2011 Minnesota Court of Appeals decision. He has been cited in at least eight appellate/supreme court decisions in at least seven different states besides North Carolina. He has prepared military pension division orders for fellow attorneys in over 33 states.

He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Town & Country Magazine, Law Weekly USA and The Raleigh News & Observer, and has had articles published in the American Journal of Family Law, Family Law Quarterly, Family Advocate, The Military Law Review, the Army Lawyer, Family Advocate, and The Practical Lawyer. Mark has written over 100 articles on the subjects of military pension division and Survivor Benefit Plan for a dozen or more periodicals published by State Bar family law sections across the country.

Mr. Sullivan is the editor of “Family Law Practice and Procedure Manual” (NC Academy of Trial Lawyers, 2000), and he has written numerous articles on trial advocacy, negotiating techniques, the use of computers, and the practice of family law. He is a frequent speaker at military and family law programs and at the Army JAG School and the Naval Justice School.

Mr. Sullivan is a member of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the Family Law Sections of the North Carolina Bar Association and the American Bar Association, the Judge Advocates Association, and the Reserve Officers Association. In September, 2000, he was certified by the AAML as a family law arbitrator.

Mr. Sullivan’s book, The Military Divorce Handbook, was published in its 3rd Edition in 2019 by the American Bar Association. It is now in two volumes with over 1200 pages, covering issues such as child support, military pension division, taxes, domestic abuse and custody/visitatio