After efficiently ending the pop icon’s long-standing conservatorship, THR Energy Lawyer Mathew Rosengart shares how he moved via the sometimes sluggish L.A. court docket system with lightning velocity and what’s subsequent now that the star is in management.
For 13 years, 9 months and 12 days, Britney Spears languished in a conservatorship as the entire world watched. Regardless of her legion of followers throughout the globe demanding for greater than a decade that the court docket #FreeBritney, nothing modified — till every little thing did.
On June 23, Spears appeared remotely earlier than L.A. County Superior Courtroom Decide Brenda Penny and broke her public silence in a fiery, emotional speech. “It’s embarrassing and demoralizing what I’ve been via, and that’s the principle motive I’ve by no means mentioned it brazenly,” mentioned Spears, describing the conservatorship as abusive and asking the court docket to let her decide her personal lawyer. “It’s my want and my dream for all of this to finish.”
Inside weeks, she’d have for the primary time an lawyer of her selecting advocating for her: Greenberg Traurig accomplice Mathew Rosengart. Lower than 4 months later, the conservatorship was terminated. Spears was free. Rosengart, a company litigator and former Division of Justice trial lawyer, was no stranger to high-profile instances, having represented the likes of Sean Penn and Winona Ryder — however he additionally wasn’t a probate lawyer. So why did he wish to tackle a contentious case that appeared, on the floor no less than, to be outdoors his wheelhouse?
“I used to be involved, even earlier than getting concerned, about why this lady appeared to have a few of her elementary rights and civil liberties stripped away,” Rosengart tells THR. “As a former federal prosecutor, I had expertise with prison defendants who have been charged with committing heinous crimes, they usually had the fitting to decide on their very own counsel, but Britney didn't have that proper.”
Along with the civil liberties points, Rosengart says Spears’ June 23 testimony struck a chord: He heard the voice of a lady who had been bullied. “I’ve all the time detested bullying, even rising up,” he says. “Bullying a lady is much more unacceptable and abhorrent. It was troubling to me each personally and professionally, and I felt I may assist cease it, as a lawyer and in any other case. That’s a pledge I made, and it was actually rewarding to have the ability to assist.”
It builds on classes he discovered whereas working on the DOJ. “You put on the white hat and do the fitting factor it doesn't matter what the fitting factor is,” says Rosengart. “The quote from Justice Sutherland in Berger v. U.S. concerning the accountability of a prosecutor to be a servant of the legislation — ‘Guilt shall not escape nor innocence endure’ — has all the time been a guidepost when it comes to how I’ve litigated.”
In his first statements as Spears’ lawyer, Rosengart promised to behave “aggressively and expeditiously” to take away her father, Jamie Spears, as conservator of the property. Lower than two weeks later, he formally filed a petition to take action. The transfer was met with some skepticism — together with a “surreal” second throughout which Rosengart recollects watching CNN pundits query why he wasn’t instantly making an attempt to terminate the conservatorship solely.
“It was strategic,” says Rosengart. “I knew we’d have the ability to get a a lot quicker listening to if we tried to bifurcate this — first transferring to droop the daddy and eradicating that obstacle on the best way to termination.”
He additionally was considering a number of strikes forward. Rosengart suspected that Jamie’s attorneys “needed to keep away from the stigma of their shopper being suspended” and in addition realized that if Jamie have been eliminated, he’d have to show over attorney-client privileged paperwork belonging to the property. Not solely did Jamie contest the suspension, however he additionally petitioned to finish the conservatorship solely. After Jamie was suspended Sept. 29 — and formally on document in help of termination — Rosengart “knew that the wind was at our backs.”
“Probably the greatest days I had within the case was once I was in a position to name Britney on Sept. 29 proper after the listening to,” Rosengart recollects. “She was away on the time, and I instructed her she’d have the ability to get up the subsequent morning — for the primary time in 13 years — with out her father being conservator of the property. That was what she needed, and she or he was elated.”
Her followers have been, too. Rosengart isn’t on social media, however loads of mates despatched him memes and tweets to ensure he was conscious of his new nicknames, together with Rosengod and Rosenzaddy. “I needed to lookup ‘zaddy,’” Rosengart laughs. “All of that was humbling and embarrassing. You possibly can’t ignore the media elements of it however, if something, it compelled me to focus and never get distracted by the eye.”
Since breaking her silence, Britney has been instantly sharing her emotions concerning the conservatorship and people related to it together with her followers through social media. She has indicated that she’s not accomplished preventing and intends to sue a number of folks related to the conservatorship. However even when she decides to not go down that path, the probate matter nonetheless has some big-ticket free ends.
“We're nonetheless taking a look at every little thing, together with following the cash,” says Rosengart. On July 27, he’ll be again in court docket to deal with excellent accounting points and Jamie Spears’ software to have Britney pay his ongoing authorized charges. That’s “on high of greater than $6 million he took in charges and commissions through the years and lots of hundreds of thousands extra paid by the property to his attorneys,” notes Rosengart, who clearly hasn’t taken his foot off the fuel. “Their software is just not solely legally meritless; below the circumstances, I consider it is usually morally abominable.”
The influence of the termination has been widespread, and Rosengart says it’s all as a result of his shopper: “Britney will get the credit score. She shined a lightweight not solely on her personal conservatorship, however on conservatorships and guardianships usually, and it opened my eyes. I can not consider one other subject in these extremely polemical occasions that has drawn the far proper, the far left and everybody in between collectively. The U.S. Congress is analyzing what occurred right here in a totally nonpartisan method.”
Advocates are calling for main change on behalf of individuals in undesirable conservatorships who don’t have the attain and affect of a worldwide famous person; members of Congress have requested Spears and Rosengart to testify about their expertise; and the federal “Free Britney Act” is pending, whereas California lawmakers have already got handed laws designed to guard conservatees’ rights.
“I’m nonetheless processing what occurred, and I will likely be for the foreseeable future,” says Rosengart. “It’s been an extremely arduous but thrilling journey. Once I walked out of the courthouse on July 14, at that time limit I wasn’t certain if we'd have the ability to obtain what in different circumstances may have taken years in only a interval of months. Our strategic choices, and aggressive employment of these choices, in addition to Britney’s personal steadfastness and fierce advocacy, have been all contributors.”
It was a letter from former U.S. Supreme Courtroom Justice David Souter that basically introduced issues house for Rosengart. His first job after graduating from Boston Faculty Legislation Faculty in 1987 was clerking for Souter in New Hampshire Supreme Courtroom, they usually’ve remained shut through the years. “He has actually 1000's of books in his house, however he doesn’t watch TV and is aware of little or no about popular culture,” says Rosengart. “Simply as he had no concept who Sean Penn was once I launched them at my wedding ceremony, he additionally was unfamiliar with Britney.”
Which made the suggestions from Souter, who in a letter of advice courting again to 1988 praised Rosengart’s intuition, intelligence and integrity, much more compelling. A couple of weeks after profitable the case, he obtained a message from Souter “expressing his satisfaction within the professionalism with which he thought I had carried out myself and the way I stood up for my shopper,” says Rosengart. “It meant the world to me and introduced every little thing full circle.”
As for Spears herself, with the conservatorship now not controlling her, she has teased new music on social media and in February she inked a ebook take care of Simon & Schuster reportedly price $15 million. Past that? Rosengart circles again to what he mentioned on the courthouse steps in November. “What’s subsequent for Britney — and that is the primary time that this might be mentioned for a couple of decade — is as much as one individual: Britney.”
A model of this story first appeared within the March 30 subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.