The real untold story: what the Anna Nicole Smith case tells us about the legal system.

• Author: Alt, Robert

When Larry Birkhead stood outside a Bahamas courthouse proclaiming that he was the father of Dannielynn, the then seven-month-old daughter of deceased Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, the event had the surreal atmosphere of someone announcing he had won the lottery. In this particular lottery, the winning ticket was Dannielynn. Thetabloid saga that lead Birkhead to that courthouse in April 2007 is an all-too-American tale of protracted litigation, with a cast of characters ranging from shady private investigators to the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

You can review that saga in Blonde Ambition (Grand Central), a salacious new tome by TV reporter Rita Cosby. For most readers, the book is about celebrity gossip, not the public-policy implications of the story. Its big revelation is that the two "finalists" in the claim for Dannielynn's paternity--Birkhead, a photographer, and Howard K. Stern, Anna Nicole's lawyer--cut a corrupt bargain. Birkhead gets the baby, which according to Cosby earned Birkhead $1.5 million for the first photo shoot alone, while Stern gets to manage the estate, for which he will probably be paid handsomely.

But there is more to this story than such National Enquirer-style details. By offering a close-up view of the apparent avarice of Smith, Birkhead, and Stern, Blonde Ambition inadvertently says a lot about the attorneys that served that avarice and a legal system they manipulated too easily.

Cosby, like many others who have written about the case, suggests that young Dannielynn "could" inherit as much as half of the estimated billion-dollar estate of Smith's wealthy deceased husband, J. Howard Marshall. This might be true, in the same sense that Publishers Clearinghouse informs us that we "could" already be winners. But the litigation is much more likely to line the pockets of the lawyers than to enrich Dannielynn.

Say what you will about blondes: Smith was no dummy when it came to shopping for legal jurisdictions that would help her carry out her plans. Thus, to prevent Birkhead from hauling her and Dannielynn into court for a paternity test, Smith and Stern went to great lengths to establish residency in the Bahamas, thereby evading U.S. jurisdiction. There were times, however, that she needed the benefits of U.S. courts. She (or her legal team) shopped carefully at those times as well.

Accordingly, when the Texas probate court upheld J. Howard Marshall's estate plan--one which did not provide for Smith...