Court Opinion

ID: 9455383
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:20:39.760528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:34.762850
License: Public Domain

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I concur in affirming the dismissal of the complaint. I agree with my brother Kaufman and with the court below, Dacey v. New York County Lawyers’ Association, 290 F.Supp. 835, 842 (D.C.1968) that .the Association, as a matter of law, had probable cause to initiate unauthorized practice proceedings, and therefore that the dismissal of the action which is based upon the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, was proper. In his concurring opinion my brother Moore also accepts this ground as a dispositive one.
I agree with Judge Kaufman that due respect for the First Amendment cautions us that it would be unwise to affirm the judgment below upon the added ground relied upon by the district court and by Judge Moore that in the circumstances here the Association is clothed with the immunity from suit enjoyed by New York State public prosecutors. It is clear that the objective of the Association in instituting its special proceedings in the New York courts against Dacey, a non-lawyer, was to suppress his book “How to Avoid Probate!” and to prevent the views expressed therein from being available to the general public.
I am unable to reconcile a desire to have “book burning” judicially approved because a non-lawyer’s book contains derogatory remarks about our profession with the power to prosecute for unauthorized practice of the profession. Indeed, I heartily approve of this grant of *196power to the Association for it is necessary to repose it in .those learned in the law if our profession is to preserve its great ideals through membership therein of none other than those indviduals qualified by learning and training to render personalized legal professional service. Non-lawyers should not be permitted to render that service.