Larry Birkhead Sues His Former Lawyer

Larry Birkhead has filed a lawsuit against his former lawyer, Debra Opri, in Los Angeles Superior Court. Birkhead is suing Opri for fraud, legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and conversion.
Birkhead says Opri agreed to represent his paternity case for daughter Dannielynn pro bono because the publicity from the case would benefit her legal career. He also says that Opri wanted to take on his case because she was a “firm believer in father’s rights.”

Several months after taking on the case, he contends that Opri asked him for payment in order to pay an associate who had threatened to quit. He then paid Opri $20,000 for costs associated with the paternal lawsuit. He claims that Opri told him that he would not have to pay any more.

Birkhead alleges their relationship began to breakdown when she attended the funeral for Anna Nicole Smith and wanted to speak to him about business matters despite his requests to put them aside for that day. Opri also started a “Save Danielynn Fund” without Birkhead's endorsement or permission, for which she solicited donations from the public to pay Birkhead’s legal bills.

During the ongoing court battle Birkhead signed an agreement with NBC for exclusive reports on the Dannielynn custody case. Under the agreement, he says he was to receive no less than $1,050,000. In his suit, he alleges that at least $865,000 of that money was deposited in Opri's attorney-client trust account. Birkhead's suit says he never gave Opri consent to deposit any money into her account and has demanded that the money be returned to him. Per Birkhead, Opri has only returned $200,000.

Birkhead’s suit comes a few days after Opri filed a complaint against him alleging that he didn’t pay legal fees owed to her.