The Superior Court of Los Angeles allowed this Wednesday that Britney Spears can choose her own lawyer, a substantial change in the legal guardianship that has controlled her life for more than 13 years and which the singer wants to end.
From now on, Britney will be represented by Mathew Rosengart, a lawyer who has handled cases of celebrities such as Sean Penn and Steven Spielberg and whose first objective will be to remove Jamie Spears, father of the artist, from guardianship.
Since 2008, Britney had been represented by Samuel Ingham, a court-appointed attorney who recently asked to withdraw from the case after her work was called into question when the singer said she never let her speak out against guardianship and was also not informed about het right to request termination.
According to an exclusive from The New York Times newspaper, this lawyer would have earned more than 3 million dollars since 2008 and sources close to the case have denounced that Ingham has been more faithful to the interests of the father than of the singer herself.
But in addition, the fact that Britney can hire her own representative calls into question the existence of her own legal guardianship, a mechanism reserved for severely disabled people who are not supposed to be able to take care of themselves.
Thus, the judge’s decision sets a precedent in the Britney case that could be transferred to the rest of the legal system that protects guardianships, in full controversy thanks to the singer’s notoriety.
Last week, Britney’s mother, Lynne Spears, requested that her daughter be able to choose an attorney. “Now, and in recent years, the ward is capable of taking care of herself and, in fact, within the parameters of the guardianship, she has made literally millions of dollars as an international celebrity,” she argued.
However, her father, Jamie Spears (they are divorced), has been the guardian since then and, for the moment, has not taken any steps to withdraw from the guardianship or relax any of its aspects. During the new hearing, Britney herself insisted again that she not only wants to end the guardianship, but that she wants to sue her father for “abuse”.
Hundreds of protesters gathered at the door of the Los Angeles Courts to demand the freedom of the artist, whose case has been around the world after her statement on June 23 in which she assured that “she was not happy” and lived in a regime of “slavery”.