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Another one bites the dust in Britney Spears’ fight against her 13-year conservatorship.
On Wednesday (October 20), Page Six reported that Holland & Knight, the law firm that represented the pop titan’s father, Jamie Spears, for years, has dropped him over concerns that her new attorney will sue after the arrangement is terminated. He was recently suspended as conservator of her estate in late September. “Litigator Mathew Rosengart has asserted numerous times that he is going to investigate and sue Jamie,” an insider close to the situation revealed. “If/when he does, Jamie will need to defend and likely be adverse to parties in the conservatorship.”
Vivian Lee Thoreen, Jamie's lead counsel, reportedly told him that "he’ll need a different litigator and that she and H&K weren’t interested in that role." She went on to recommend Alex Weingarten, a partner in the litigation department at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and he has accepted the position, as per documents obtained by NBC.
Interestingly enough, Thoreen’s exit comes after she appeared in the Hulu/The New York Times documentary, Framing Britney Spears, and revealed that she has never seen a conservatorship terminated in her career. “They don’t want to fund this anymore because when you represent a suspended conservator it makes it much more likely that fees you’ve already obtained could be disgorged and future fees may not be paid from the estate, but rather would have to be paid from Jamie,” a separate source explained.
For now, the #FreeBritney movement is counting down until November 12 when Spears’ temporary conservators of her estate and person will meet in court to determine whether the arrangement should be eliminated entirely.