Building upon Martha Fineman's suggestion that "governmental support for the family ought to support relationships of dependency rather than the adult sexual bond between husband and wife," Cain illustrates the ways in which "current law is biased against dependent children in non-traditional families." Looking at three examples--filing status under the federal income tax, tax credits, and state inheritance taxes, she hopes policy makers will amend laws so that "tax rules that are intended to provide benefits to households with minor dependent children...provide those benefits to all households with minor dependent children."

An immediate problem with this student piece is the author's use of the idiosyncratic "same-gender loving" as opposed to "gay" or even "LGBT." He explains this choice as following from his disagreement "with the message or politics of the Euro-American 'gay-rights movement'" embodied in those terms. Even so, his alternative (besides being awkward) highlights a distracting confusion between sex and gender--no law prevents same-gender relationships or marriages, gender being a social and psychological construct, so long as the biological sexes are different. If one is able to look past this poor choice, the thesis of the piece is that the current probate laws pose difficulties for same-sex couples (one need look no further than the economic impact upon photographer Annie Leibovitz from the estate she received after the death of her partner, Susan Sontag, but which also extend to the increased likelihood of successful challenges by relatives of the deceased partner), problems that he thinks could be resolved through "pre-death mediation."

When legislatures and courts refuse to recognize same-sex marriages and same-sex civil unions, they usually reject same-sex intestacy rights as well. The author of this article posits that states may reject formal recognition of the relationships for public policy reasons while still recognizing intestacy rights of survivors to a same-sex marriage or civil union. She says that this compromise allows states to exercise powers under the Full Faith and Credit Clause while still respecting the likely donative intent of a decedent and preserving wealth that two same-sex partners jointly generate.

In her poignant introduction, Jennifer L. Levi recounts the kinds of tragedies that can befall same-sex couples when one partner becomes mental incapacitated, or dies. The need for the kind of wise legal counsel offered by these chapters is thus well established. A. Spencer Bergstedt provides a "first-of-its-kind practical guide," providing "key legal analysis for conducting estate planning for transgender clients." A similarly practical survey of the legal terrain, this time focusing on the special issues of aging same-sex couples, is offered by Aimee Bouchard and Kim Zadworny, both also, like Bergstedt, practicing attorneys rather than academics. The final contribution to this collection, from Patricia Crozier, offers some of the "nuts and bolts" fundamentals to be kept in mind by all LGBT families.