This volume continues the work of the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law in 2003 and 2004 in examining through the juxtaposition of civil and common law jurisdictions areas of fundamental importance to estate and trust lawyers internationally. Here we focus upon two themes: the definition of 'family' and the impact of the expansion of the concept of 'family in law'; and family fights over will and estates what recourse family members may have in challenging an estate. Each theme also has contained within it the continuing struggle between 'private' and 'public': what responsibilities should be shouldered privately, within 'the family', and what responsibilities are properly those to be borne by the state? The definition of family lies at the heart of this struggle because with each expansion of the definition comes an expansion of responsibility in the private arena; but, at the same time, a public recognition of relationships having consequences expanding definitions of family are necessarily normative in this sense.