QDRO: Safeguarding Your Client’s Rights to Retirement Benefits

Louise Nixon is President of the Board for the Center for Access to QDROs (https://qdrocenter.org/). She is also a co-founder of QDROCounsel LLC, a legal technology company for pension division (https://qdrocounsel.com/). The Center’s mission is to close the justice gap by providing access to high-quality QDRO products to nonprofit legal services organizations, self-help centers & qualified individuals in financial distress. The Center is supported by grants, nonprofit legal organizations and court-based self-help centers. Also as a way to give back to the community, QDROCounsel has provided the Center with financial support by donating an exclusive license to use QDROCounsel’s technology and by providing the resources to support that technology.

Carrie Holmes is the Executive Director of the Center for Access to QDROs, where she works to ensure that low-income family law litigants actually receive the retirement benefits to which they are entitled – safeguarding an income that will allow them to live their older years with dignity. Carrie serves as the State Bar Appointee to the Judicial Council of California’s Information Technology Advisory Committee and is a member of the Legal Service Advisory Council for Paladin, a pro bono software platform. She also co-chairs Lawyers Club of San Diego’s Advocacy & Reproductive Justice Committee and volunteers with the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Judgment Assistance Day through the Beverly Hills Bar Association. Carrie is a “double Bruin,” having received both her undergraduate and law degrees at UCLA, and is a member of the 2023 cohort of “Bruin Excellence in Civic Engagement” honorees.

Previously, she was the Pro Bono Manager and Supervising Attorney at San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program and the Pro Bono Director at the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law. She began her career in private practice family law in Beverly Hills. She has also previously served as the co-chair of the Family Law Section of the Beverly Hills Bar Association and the co-chair of the Membership Development and Red, White, and Brew Committees of the Lawyers Club of San Diego.

Ashley K. Quan joined Walzer Melcher & Yoda shortly after being admitted to the State Bar of California. Ashley focuses her practice on all aspects of family law, including dissolution of marriage, domestic violence matters, custody and visitation disputes, jurisdictional issues, premarital agreements, and postnuptial agreements.