Gathered around a Christmas tree, the Seuss family of East Lansing might fit the Norman Rockwell definition of a happy family piecing together paper stars and angels for decorations.

But because Judi and Anne are a same-sex couple, and one of their two adopted daughters is a special-needs child, they are considered in legal terms to be a nontraditional family. That means they need increased legal planning as opposed to families consisting of a man and woman in their first marriage with children.

Members of nontraditional families, such as Judi and Anne, are becoming increasingly aware of the need to seek legal advice.

"Nontraditional family" is an umbrella term generally used to include same-sex couples, families with a special-needs child and remarried couples. These families often face legal issues usually not faced by traditional, nuclear families.

"A lot of laws are based on a concept of a Beaver Cleaver situation," Doug Chalgian, an East Lansing attorney, said. "If everybody was married for 50 years with children by the same spouse, estate planning would be a simple process, but there are so many variations.

"The truth is, our law is steeped in ancient history and the law grows out of an ancient picture of how the world operates."

Chalgian deals with long-term planning issues for senior citizens and recently met with the Seuss family.

Many of the rights entitled to people who are married do not extend to same-sex partners, so they must draft wills, documents granting power of attorney and trust funds so their property will go to the correct person in case one partner dies.

Without drafting these documents, members in nontraditional couples pass on their inheritance to family members rather than partners.

In addition, the lack of documents can prevent hospital patients from seeing their partners.

"Most couples we have talked to have at least wills," Judi Seuss said.

Chalgian hopes that soon lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples won't have the same legal troubles they do now.

"In the near future, it's going to be a non-issue," he said. "We're going to ask ourselves, 'Why did we worry about that?'"

But in addition to dealing with their own long-term plans, families with special-needs children have legal concerns as well.

The legal problems wouldn't be as bad if the families didn't wait so long to talk with advisers, said Ellen Sugrue Hyman of United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan in Lansing and a private attorney.

"With young families, they are often immersed in taking care of their children and don't tend to think about legal things until something happens," Hyman said.

Many parents with children with disabilities need to set up trust funds to support their children in the future or apply for government aid. They sometimes have to deal with more complex issues, like malpractice settlements.

"We get a lot of calls from people who are going through a settlement and there are a lot of issues of how it's structured," Hyman said. "They're in a crisis situation; there are some things you can do after the fact, but it's much better if you take care of it beforehand."

Other nontraditional families have to take care of issues like divorce cases and making sure both parents have adopted a child instead of just one.

Lori Strom, coordinator of Child and Family Care Resources at MSU, said her center works to make juggling jobs and school easier for both traditional and nontraditional families.

The center offers childcare for student parents during exam week, as well as a variety of workshops. Recently, the center had two legal workshops, one on elder law and another for nontraditional families.

"We're seeing more nontraditional families, and because we do have domestic partnership benefits on campus, I think that brings people out to talk about it," she said.

Strom emphasized that people have different lives, so she said the office is looking at families and broadening their scope so people will know it doesn't matter what their personal-life issues are, the office can help them.

"We are here to support people regardless of their family constellation," she said.

Shannon Houghton can be reached at hought27@msu.edu.