Today I found that the child class can't be passed over a WCF service as the base class.  I tried using the KnownType and ServiceKnownType attributes, which did allow the transfer, but then EntityFramework didn't like the child class.  My solution was to write a quick shallow copy function.  Enjoy!

public static class Copy
    {
        public static T Shallow< T>(this object source)
        {
            return Shallow< T>(source, (T)Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(T)));
        }
        public static T Shallow<T>(this object source, T target)
        {
            foreach (PropertyInfo pi in typeof(T).GetProperties())
            {
             var prop =  source.GetType().GetProperty(pi.Name);
                    
                if(prop != null)
                    prop.SetValue(target, pi.GetValue(source, null), null);
            }
            return target;
        }


    }