A majority of Obama eligibility lawsuits do not even name Obama as the defendant. For example, of the 7 lawsuits that made it to the US Supreme Court for justices’ conference there was: (1) Berg v Obama (Obama’s lawyers chose not to submit a brief to Justice Souter); (2)Craig v US (did not name Obama as defendant); (3)Donofrio v Wells (did not name Obama as defendant); (4)Herbert v Obama et. al (Obama presented no defense in the Federal Court for Middle Florida or at the US Supreme Court); (5)Lightfoot v Bowen (Obama not named as a defendant); (6)Schneller v Cortes (Obama not named as a defendant); and (7)Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz (Obama not named as a defendant).
There is no legal expense when you are not named as a defendant.
As far as I can tell, Obama has had attorneys for 3 out of 64 eligibility lawsuits: Berg v Obama, Holliser v Soetoro and Keyes v Bowen. Since none of these lawsuits has gone to trial and have been dismissed, the legal expenses are minimal.
Once the Chief Justice swore Barack Obama in, the Justice Department handles all legal issues for the president. There appear to be an additional seven lawsuits in which Justice Department attorneys filed briefs.
When somebody sues you, you have to respond.
But even at the state court level, most of the suits do not name Obama personally. A few more examples of Obama eligibility suits that do not name Obama as the defendant: Ankeney et. al v Mitch Daniels, the Governor of Indiana (Strange bedfellows suit: the Republican Attorney General of Indiana defended the Governor and Obama); Beverly v FEC; Brockhousen v Andrade; Broe v Reed; Connerat v Browning; Constitution Party v Lingle, The Governor of Hawaii; Cook v Good, Marquis v Reed...on and on I could go...
If I had to guess, I would think the entire Obama birther legal bill is less than $10,000 and most of that is probably travel costs for DOJ attorneys. (And travel/coffee costs for the Attorney General who to fly from California to Georgia in order to “fix” one of the cases...in a coffee shop).