Britney Spears’ court-appointed lawyer is bowing out of the “Circus” singer’s embattled conservatorship.
Sam Ingham, the probate lawyer who’s collected nearly $3 million working for the pop star since 2008, is resigning.
He and a colleague at his firm, David C. Nelson, tendered their signed resignation letters Tuesday afternoon, according to filings obtained by the Daily News.
They asked the court to make their departures “effective upon the appointment of new court-appointed counsel.”
Ingham was appointed to Spears’ case more than a decade ago against the pop star’s wishes after the lawyer she originally hired was booted from the case and Ingham told a judge she “did not understand” why she needed an attorney.
The news of Ingham’s departure followed on the heels of Spears’ longtime manager Larry Rudolph also throwing in the towel and quitting after learning that Spears, 39, plans to retire from performing.
In a fiery June 23 statement to the court, Spears called her longstanding conservatorship “abusive” and claimed she had no idea she had the right to file a request to terminate it.
“I didn’t know I could petition the conservatorship to be ended,” she told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny. “I’m sorry for my ignorance, but I honestly didn’t know that.”
She said the conservatorship forced her to work without adequate breaks, take medication that left her feeling incapacitated and attend therapy sessions even when she was sick. She also claimed it prevented her from fulfilling her dream of getting married again and having another child.
“I deserve to have a life. I’ve worked my whole life. I deserve to have a two to three year break and just, you know, do what I want to do. But I do feel like there is a crutch here. And I feel open and I’m okay to talk to you today about it. But I wish I could stay with you on the phone forever, because when I get off the phone with you, all of a sudden all I hear all these no’s — no, no, no,” Spears told the judge.
“And then all of a sudden I get I feel ganged up on and I feel bullied and I feel left out and alone. And I’m tired of feeling alone. I deserve to have the same rights as anybody does, by having a child, a family, any of those things, and more so.”
Before she spoke last month, Ingham told the court he requested the special status hearing on her behalf.
“My client is free to discuss any aspect of the conservatorship that she wishes and is welcome to say whatever she likes,” he said. “I have not in any way attempted to control or filter or edit anything that she has to say today. These are entirely her words.”
Spears is set for another conservatorship hearing later this month.
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