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Remove Britney's father first
Outside the Probate Bar
Mathew Rosengart had never handled a probate or conservatorship case, and he treated that as an advantage. He was not part of that insular bar, so he came at a case full of thorny, Byzantine issues like an aggressive commercial litigator, or a federal prosecutor, and set a strategy different from what a traditional probate lawyer would have chosen.
The First Hearing
The first hearing, on July 14, 2021, turned on whether Britney Spears had a right to her own counsel. She had been deprived of it for 13 years, during a stretch when she was earning tens of millions of dollars performing in Las Vegas. The second question was whether that counsel should be him.
Removing One Piece First
A traditional lawyer would have moved to terminate the entire conservatorship in the first motion, which is the checkers move rather than the chess move. Rosengart chose to split the process and seek only the removal of her father, a decision that drew heat at the time. Going after the father alone led to a much faster unwinding of the conservatorship.
He was retained in July. By September her father had been removed as conservator, and by November the entire conservatorship, which had run for 13 or 14 years, was over.
How can a court split one case into stages?
Courts call this bifurcation, and it lets a judge decide one issue before the rest. Rule 42(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows separate trials of particular issues for convenience, to avoid prejudice, or to speed things up. A common example is deciding liability first and damages later. State courts have comparable powers over the order in which they hear disputed questions.
How does a judge remove a conservator?
In California, a probate judge can remove a conservator for cause, and the court can suspend one immediately while a petition is pending. The judge decides based on what serves the conservatee. In this case, the Los Angeles judge, Brenda Penny, suspended the conservator on September 29, 2021. She ended the conservatorship on November 12, 2021.
Why do probate courts oversee conservatorships?
Probate courts grew out of the old duty to supervise property that its owner could not manage, such as an estate or a minor's inheritance. In England, the Crown claimed authority over the property of people judged unable to manage their affairs, and that power passed to the courts of chancery. American states carried the arrangement over, and in California the probate division of the superior court handles conservatorships. Those same courts also handle wills, trusts, and guardianships.
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