Phil Spector Sues His Ex-Lawyer

Phil Spector is back in the news -- and that mean the Spinner Spector Detector®, though it may be giving off a slight whiff of mothballs, is once again back on the case! The reason America's number-one pistol-packing producer's mop-maned mug is staring you in the face once again is that Spector has decided he hasn't had quite enough courtroom fun after his recent mistrial in the shooting death of Lana Clarkson. We're happy to report that the allegedly murdering music mogul will next have the privilege of hiring a new lawyer to sue the pants off one of his old lawyers.

Spector has thrown down a $1 million lawsuit to recover the cool million retainer collected by his original attorney Robert Shapiro, to whom the Hall of Fame music figure gave the sack and blamed for formal murder charges being filed in his case. The legendary producer charges that Shapiro, most famously a part of O.J. Simpson's "dream team," "took unfair and unscrupulous advantage of his friendship and position of trust with Mr. Spector, and decided to use Mr. Spector's arrest as an opportunity to make a financial windfall and garner publicity for himself."

Rich, crazy and trigger-happy -- these days, Spector has pretty much become a twisted old money tree for the legal profession to get fat off.