On November 12, 2021, Judge Brenda Penny in Los Angeles Superior Court granted Britney Spears’s (“Spears”) petition to terminate her conservatorship. A conservatorship is a legal arrangement in which a judge appoints a person to assume responsibility over a person who lacks the ability to manage their own personal and financial affairs. Conservatorships are usually associated with the elderly but can also be used to oversee younger people struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues.

Spears was initially placed under conservatorship in 2008 by a probate judge who determined the singer was unable to manage her affairs. Spears publicly acknowledged her need for the legal arrangement. As a result, Spears’s father was appointed as her conservator over her $50 million-dollar-plus estate. However, in July of 2021, Spears hired a new lawyer from Greenberg Traurig LLP, who immediately filed a petition to remove her father—alleging the legal arrangement was toxic.

During a court hearing, Spears gave a passionate profanity-laced speech in which she stated that the conservatorship was “doing me way more harm than good; I desire to have a life.” For example, her conservatorship had prevented her from seeking medical help to remove an IUD and contributed to years of being overworked and restricted from doing things like taking hair vitamins, drinking coffee, or eating a hamburger. More ominously, Spears’s new lawyer alleged in the petition that her father partook in her daughter’s earnings to the tune of millions of dollars in addition to monthly compensation.

Spears’s public battle with her father over her conservatorship has highlighted the potential dangers of conservatorships. As demonstrated by her case, one of the chief dangers is that conservatorships are so easy to get into but difficult to end. According to court documents obtained by the New York Times, Spears has been trying unsuccessfully to end her conservatorship for the past seven years.

Her previous unsuccessful attempts implied that she was still unable to make her own decisions regarding her health, finance, and career. Yet since 2008, when her conservatorship began, she has released four albums, judged The X Factor, been on tour several times, and given hundreds of performances. According to Spears, her conservatorship became an “oppressive and controlling tool against her.” Although conservators are subject to rigorous reporting and accounting requirements, a conservatee can also request more judicial supervision. Once a request is made, the probate court can appoint an investigator to verify that the conservatee’s best interests are being looked out for.

However, in the case of Spears, she did not want more judicial supervision. She just wanted to have control over her life to do things ordinary people do: make her own decisions and control her destiny. While conservatorships can be an excellent legal tool to care for those deemed unable to care for themselves, courts should grant them only in the last resort. Spears’s public battle to end her conservatorship is only a glimpse of the unreported abuses being carried out against conservatees across this country who do not have the resources to hire high-powered lawyers to terminate their conservatorships. Perhaps it is time for state legislators to reevaluate conservatorship laws to ensure they do not become “oppressive and controlling tools.”