ON STAGE on her “Circus” tour, Britney Spears is the boss. She wears a sexy ringmaster outfit and snaps a leather whip. “This mama is in control,” she shouts at the audience.
When the house lights come up, it’s a different story. The 27-year-old singer’s life is controlled by her father and her affairs handled by a cadre of lawyers seemingly as numerous and indispensable as the backup dancers who surround Spears on stage.
At least 17 lawyers or firms have had a hand in Spears’s personal or business matters in the 14 months since a judge determined she was not competent to manage her life and multimillion-dollar music empire herself.
The legal work has not come cheap, according to court papers, including an accounting filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday. The singer’s estate or the trust that holds most of her assets paid at least $2.7 million in lawyers’ fees and costs, and probably much more, during the initial 11 months of the court-ordered conservatorship, the filings show.
Many lawyers continue to work on the case, accruing fees that will be submitted for approval at a later date.
Lawyers contacted about their fees did not return calls or declined comment.
At a recent court hearing, a half-dozen lawyers representing the singer, her father and her estate formed a wall of grey flannel and banker’s boxes that obscured the audience’s view of the judge and prompted a puzzled opposing lawyer to wonder aloud, “Which one of you am I supposed to talk to?” Another opponent sniped then that “Miss Britney Spears is being bled dry by these proceedings.”
One retired probate judge, Arnold Gold, not involved in her cases, said that although legal fees might sound large, many bills – such as divorce or entertainment lawyers – would be paid out whether or not the conservatorship was in place.
“The mere dollar amount doesn’t automatically mean it is inappropriate,” said Gold. “It’s quite appropriate, particularly in the entertainment field, to incur and have to pay very, very, very sizable lawyers’ fees.”
In Monday’s filing, lawyers representing Spears’s father, Jamie, presented the bills – including theirs for more than $1 million – in the context of what they described as enormous personal and career strides by the singer, who was hospitalised twice for psychological problems before her father assumed oversight.
“Since the initiation of the conservatorship, as a result of the concerted efforts of Mr Spears as well as all the professionals involved, all aspects of Ms Spears’s life have been stabilised and continue to improve,” lawyer Geraldine Wyle wrote. She said the singer’s mental health continued “to mend”, she had regained “substantial visitation” with her children and her career “has been revitalised”.
Wyle wrote that Spears faced a “myriad of complex and challenging issues” necessitating outside lawyers, including her divorce and custody proceedings with Kevin Federline ($460,000 in total fees and costs), a Florida civil suit brought by a former manager ($113,000), a driving-without-a-licence trial ($26,000) and a dispute over mould in a Malibu property leased by Spears ($7,000).
The accounting does not take into account the $375,000 Spears paid to cover her ex-husband’s legal expenses, nor does it disclose how much her entertainment lawyer, charged with rebuilding her career and writing contracts for her, was paid.
Among the legal bills were costs associated with fighting what the conservatorship lawyers have described as a conspiracy to disturb her father’s control.
In the first six months of the conservatorship, Jamie Spears's lawyers billed $102,000 fighting alleged attempts to end the conservatorship by outsiders. The efforts included obtaining a restraining order against one of the alleged conspirators, Spears's former confidant Osama "Sam" Lutfi, and beating back an attempt by lawyer Jon Eardley to intervene in the case. – (LA Times-Washington Post service)