Britney Spears’ New Lawyer Officially Files To Remove Singer’s Father From Controversial Conservatorship, Name CPA As Overseer – Update

Dominic Patten
·7 min read
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UPDATED with latest: Britney Spears’ new lawyer, Matthew Rosengart, made good on his promise to take action to remove her father’s oversight of the singer’s life.

On Monday according to multiple reports, Rosengart filed a petition on the singer’s behalf with Los Angeles Superior Court asking for a CPA to be named the new conservator of her considerable estate, which is listed in the filing as including including cash assets of $2.7 million and non-cash assets of more than $57 million. If approved, forensic CPA Jason Rubin will replace Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, who has controlled her money and much of her life since 2008.

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The filing asks the judge to give Rubin “the power and authorization to pursue opportunities related to professional commitments and activities including but not limited to performing, recording, videos, tours, TV shows, and other similar activities as long as they are approved by the conservator of the person, the conservatee’s medical team.”

A hearing regarding this petition is scheduled for Dec. 13.

PREVIOUSLY on July 14: Less than an hour after becoming Britney Spears’ new lawyer, Matthew Rosengart pledged to push the singer’s father off his perch in the highly constraining conservatorship that has held sway over the singer’s personal and professional life for more than a decade.

Surrounded by a team of fellow Greenberg Traurig lawyers, Rosengart on Wednesday informed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny that he would be filing paperwork in the next few weeks to end the arrangement that has seen Jamie Spears’ in almost full charge of his daughter since 2008.

Speaking directly to Penny and a phalanx of 10 lawyers and more on video monitors, a masked Rosengart dramatically and rhetorically asked whether anyone really thought Britney Spears was being well served by her father in the arrangement. The newly minted attorney then went on to ask the elder Spears to step down as co-conservator immediately, or he would file documents to have him removed.

Jamie Spears’ own lawyer, Vivian Thoreen, waved away the suggestion as a non-starter.

Unless there is a dramatic shift in perspectives ASAP, the motion will certainly set the stage for a battle royale between the younger Spears and her father, who dominates the conservatorship and hence his daughter’s $50 million fortune.

This afternoon the singer, who was piped in via phone to the downtown gathering, urged Penny to turn the focus from her to her father. “Investigate him,” Spears said, in tones reminiscent of her chilling and sometime unsteady June 23 testimony over the lack of control she has over her life, career, music and even her own body.

Before today’s hearing ended, the younger Spears also told the court that she is fine with co-conservator Jodi Montgomery remaining in charge of her medical and personal affairs, at least for now.

Spears herself was pleased with the way things went in court with “real representation,” she wrote later in the day on social media, posting herself “celebrating by horseback riding and doing cartwheels.”

Opposed by Jamie Spears, Montgomery’s request to have 24/7 security at her home and office due to a surge in threats since last month will be addressed at a now-scheduled hearing on July 26. Another hearing is set for September 29.

PREVIOUSLY, 2:55 PM: Britney Spears tentatively has a new lawyer, but the controversial conservatorship that controls the former Princess of Pop’s life, career and $50 million fortune won’t be going away anytime soon.

Still, the battle lines are even more clearly drawn thanks to a hearing Wednesday. Having already forcibly stated on June 23 she believed “this conservatorship is abusive” and “I would honestly like to be able to sue my family,” an emotional Spears today remotely told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny that “I’m here to get rid” of her estranged father and co-conservator Jamie Spears.

Noting that she has “serious abandonment issues,” the 39-year-old singer added that she wants to “charge him with conservatorship abuse.”

Coming after the blistering testimony by the “Toxic” singer last month, vital resignations of managers and others, submissions and battles of new lawyers and pricey security requirements in the last two weeks, the much-anticipated hearing on the restrictive 13-year-old arrangement tuned into a multi-ring circus — in and outside the downtown L.A. courthouse.

With a number of topics on the agenda for what was originally intended to be a routine accounting update, the most high-profile matter was attorney Matthew Rosengart’s pitch to take over at Spears’ request to be her legal representative. Judge Penny granted the request, and also approved the resignations of Samuel Ingham III, firm Loeb & Loeb, and wealth management firm Bessemer Trust from the increasingly messy conservatorship.

Rosengart, a media-friendly former federal prosecutor, has been in talks with Spears since not long after the court-appointed Ingham unveiled his desire on July 6 to exit the post he has held since 2008. With a past client list including Sean Penn, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Steven Spielberg, sharp-elbowed litigator Rosengart will be charged with fulfilling Spears’ sometimes tearful pleas of last month to end the conservatorship.

That process could take months and could still be stymied by Jamie Spears, who is already in dust-ups with co-conservator Jodi Montgomery and his ex-wife, Lynne.

Unlike in the recent past and with Covid-19 cases rising again in Los Angeles County, today’s 1:30 p.m. hearing was in a bit of bubble as the LASC Remote Audio program was suddenly discontinued after Spears’ June 23 testimony was played online in real time.

There were about 30 members of the media allowed in Penny’s courtroom this afternoon, with electronic devices not allowed in any form or fashion. As smartphones were placed in sealed magnetic pouches inside the courthouse, while outside around 100 #FreeBritney-chanting supporters and seemingly as many media outlets waited in the oppressive July sun. In that vein, as more pro-Britney rallies took place in NYC, DC and elsewhere across the U.S. today, a pink backdrop had been erected on the Grand Avenue sidewalk in the City of Angels for interviews between calls of “end the conservatorship now!”

Before the group started marching, speakers at the L.A. rally were vitriolic in their denunciation of the conservatorship and the man and woman many of them blame. That was was evident in the cheers that erupted across the spectrum when scandal-ridden Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took to the microphone and proclaimed “Jamie Spears is a dick!”

Penny was also the object of ire by Britney supporters Wednesday, even as the singer herself praised her efforts. The judicial official and others were the subject of “lock them up” bellows for the decision to essentially close off proceedings from the public and not end the conservatorship immediately.

The intense media focus on Spears’ case also took a whole new direction yesterday, when the New York Times-produced documentary Framing Britney Spears was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. In the past year, the Samantha Stark-directed film has proven fundamental in spotlighting the situation facing the multi-platinum singer and her more than decade-long conservatorship.

Although the hearing inside was potent and the crowd outside boisterous, the actual docket for the probate matter was quiet today. That’s rare after the flurry of filings in the last few days from conflicting co-conservators and an amicus brief from the ACLU.

This will likely be a quiet before the storm now that Rosengart’s on the job for Spears.

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