The lawyer for Judith Regan, whose plan to publish a book by O.J. Simpson called "If I Did It" ignited a firestorm of criticism, plans to sue HarperCollins for dismissing the publisher in breach of her contract, The New York Times reported on its website Tuesday.

The lawyer for Judith Regan, whose plan to publish a book by O.J. Simpson called "If I Did It" ignited a firestorm of criticism, plans to sue HarperCollins for dismissing the publisher in breach of her contract, The New York Times reported on its website Tuesday.

Regan, who had her own imprint at Harper Collins, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., was fired Friday just weeks after suffering the embarrassment of having Murdoch personally dump her pet project.

After much public outrage, Murdoch canceled a planned book by Simpson entitled "If I Did It" in which the former football star describes how he would have killed his ex-wife and her friend had he committed the crime -- which he insists he did not.

Celebrity attorney Bert Fields, whose previous clients include Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson, said in an interview with Reuters that he will file the lawsuit as soon as possible to stop what he termed unfair treatment of his client.

Fields said, "They gave my client no severance, no notice, no warning and no statements of what she did. They had armed guards come and close down her office. She could not contact me because my phone number was in her computer which was closed by the storm troopers."

"She is very unhappy with the smear campaign against her. She is prepared to fight," he added.

Since her dismissal, publishing sources have said that the departure of the controversial publisher came as a result of making anti-Semitic remarks in an argument with a Jewish lawyer for HarperCollins.

Editor: Donald