Since her infamous public breakdowns more than a decade ago, the pop singer Britney Spears has lived in California under a court-approved conservatorship, a complex legal arrangement meant to oversee her personal well-being and finances.
Steered largely by the singer's father, James Spears, the conservatorship has functioned mostly out of public view,
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Still, the singer herself has rarely commented on the arrangement, and has made little effort through her court-appointed lawyer to alter the structure of the conservatorship. That changed this week when the lawyer Samuel D. Ingham III submitted a filing Monday in which he said Spears now believes the conservatorship "must be changed substantially in order to reflect the major changes in her current lifestyle and her stated wishes." (The filing was first reported by The Blast.)
Among those shifts, according to Ingham, was Spears's "desire not to perform at this time,"
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James Spears stepped back from his role as Spears's personal conservator — a role he held since 2008, in which he oversaw her mental health care, among other things — and was replaced on a temporary basis by Jodi Montgomery, a licensed professional conservator.
Now, Spears has decided she is "strongly opposed" to having her father return as conservator of her person or her estate, according to Ingham's filing, while also leaving open the possibility that she could seek to end the conservatorship entirely. "Without in any way waiving her right to seek termination of this conservatorship in the future," the lawyer wrote, "Britney would like Ms. Montgomery's appointment as conservator of her person to be made permanent."
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As for her financial affairs, or her estate, which James Spears has also managed since 2008, sometimes in tandem with another lawyer, "she strongly prefers to have a qualified corporate fiduciary appointed to serve in this role."
Ingham added that he expected "any effort to achieve my client's objectives as stated above will be aggressively contested by James," and that Spears hoped to hire a law firm with "substantial expertise in handling contested litigation in a highly complex case such as this one."
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A status hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday in Los Angeles.
