Family Matters: Britney Spears’s Sister Jamie Lynn Was Reportedly Secretly Named Trustee of Her Fortune

The recent news of court filings related to pop icon Britney Spears’s revocable trust highlights the potential loss of privacy that exists when a conservatorship or guardianship is established. It would appear from the outside that the wrangling of family members regarding various aspects of Spears’s revocable trust (an otherwise private instrument during an individual’s lifetime and continued capacity) likely would not be in the court system or the public domain, but for her existing conservatorship. Independent of whether such conservatorship could have been avoided at the outset, the takeaway for outside practitioners is that avoiding a conservatorship or guardianship can have real benefits for families, and particularly for families of some renown.  Read more about these matters here.

This article was submitted by Steven Latterell, Ice Miller LLP. If you would like to submit content or write an article for the Estate Planning & Administration Section, please email Kara Sikorski at ksikorski@indybar.org.