Just out of Fordham Law School in 1968, Tim O'Leary receives a surprise job offer from Bradford, Lord and Turner, an old-line Manhattan law firm. Upon arrival, he is assigned to what is expected to be a routine probate proceeding in the estate of the well-known and recently divorced Reginald Simpson, who has died and whose Will disinherits his good-for-nothing brother Harold. Matters deteriorate, however, when the Will mysteriously vanishes and Harold hires the brash Brooklyn lawyer Mickey Finn to challenge it. Tim's girlfriend, a street-smart private investigator, decides the Will has been stolen, but an unexpected turn of events frustrates Tim's pursuit of her theory as the case hurtles toward what promises to be a costly and embarrassing conclusion.