For estate planners representing blended families such as second marriages, same sex relationships, and families with difficult children, this one-unit course will explore and analyze technical and tax issues surrounding the marital deduction, discretionary trust distributions, retirement plan distributions, community property characterization, tax allocation and payment planning, post mortem planning, death versus divorce and the individual psychologies of the parties. This course will also address ethical conflicts and dissect some “typical” estate planning documents to show drafting modifications appropriate for the blended family. (Offered through the LLM in Taxation and Estate Planning Programs. JD students seeking to enroll must obtain the approval of the program director.)