Defrocking Dacey

A year ago, Estate Planner Norman Dacey, 59, found a pleasant way of enriching his own estate. He wrote a paperback book called How to Avoid Probate, and readers anxious to do just that turned it into a surprise bestseller (700,000 copies). His handiwork was 55 pages of advice and lawyer criticism, plus 310 pages of do-it-yourself forms that could be used to evade the estate-gobbling process that probate sometimes involves. Lawyers were incensed. As they saw it, Dacey's all-purpose forms took scanty account of the widely varying laws of the 50 states. The American Bar Association disapproved the book (TIME, July 8, 1966), and eventually its popularity began to wane.

For some lawyers, that was not enough, and they went after Dacey for unauthorized practice of law. A New York State Supreme Court justice has just granted an injunction halting the book's sale and distribution in New York. At the same time, Justice Charles Marks also convicted Dacey of criminal contempt for practicing law without a license, an offense punishable by a $250 fine and 30 days in jail. Dacey's lawyers say they will appeal the case, probably on freedom-of-speech grounds. The Supreme Court may thus be faced with balancing the need to protect the public from nonprofessional legal advice against the need to protect bar critics from suppression.

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