Anger over legal-fees demand in Anna Nicole case

The lawyer who represented Anna Nicole Smith’s baby daughter in the dispute over the starlet’s body is seeking nearly $200,000 (€140,600) for his work.

The amount would exhaust almost all an estimated $200,000 (€140,600) remaining in a trust for the girl, though she could eventually inherit millions more, said lawyers in Miami for her father, Larry Birkhead, and Smith’s long-time companion, Howard Stern.

“It is unconscionable for a trust established for a baby to be billed at a large firm hourly rate,” the lawyers wrote.

Smith, a former Playboy model who died on February 8 in a Hollywood hotel, was the widow of Texas oil tycoon Howard Marshall.

She had been fighting Marshall’s family for years over his estimated $500 million-dollar (€352m) fortune, which could eventually go to the little girl, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead.

The matter is scheduled for a hearing on November 8.

The lawyers for Birkhead and Stern also said Smith’s estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, should pay at least part of the bill, which the mother’s lawyer, Stephen Tunstall, called ridiculous.

Tunstall agreed with them, however, over Milstein’s request, saying he “went wild” in generating a legal bill.