Conservatorships

Popstar Britney Spears’s enormous wealth, career, and personal decisions have been under a court-ordered arrangement called a conservatorship—meaning her father controls all these choices—for the last decade. The #FreeBritney fan movement, a recent New York Times documentary, and tearful court statement by Spears herself have prompted a bipartisan Congressional effort to give people placed under conservatorships more options to challenge the arrangement. University of Miami law professors Zanita Fenton and Bernard Perlmutter help us understand conservatorships. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)