Equitable adoption affects children every year, but most people are not even aware of it. When a person dies without a will, that person dies intestate, and the probate code dictates how to distribute the person’s estate. When a child is the legally adopted child of an intestate decedent, rather than the natural, biological child, the code treats that legally adopted child as the decedent’s biological child for purposes of intestate succession. However, there is a complication when the deceased parent never formally adopted the child. Before examining the legal ramifications of equitable adoption, one must understand the situation in which equitable adoption arises—the situation in which the law must bend. Equitable adoption can take many forms, but in order to put them into practice, one must understand the basic concept.