The pop singer's mom, Lynne, filed the request for $663,000 last November.
Britney Spears' lawyer has filed a petition asking the court to deny Lynne Spears' request that the pop singer pay for the attorney fees she accumulated while trying to help free her daughter from her conservatorship.
According to legal documents, obtained by ET, Britney's lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, argues that the singer should not have to pay for Lynne's $663,202 legal bill because "first, and most fundamentally, there is no legal authority supporting the petition." Rosengart explains that the petition cites "no authority at all to support the conclusion that a conservatorship estate can be held financially responsible for the attorney's fees of a third party" like Lynne.
Lynne filed her petition back in November, and in those legal documents, she claimed that she hired the firm Jones Swanson Huddell & Garrison LLC in 2019 to see "what they could do to get involved to help Britney free herself from what she saw was a very controlling existence," and to "achieve independence from her conservator father Jamie Spears." The conservatorship was terminated back in November after 13 years.
Britney's lawyer, however, says that while Lynne "had the right to hire and pay for her own counsel, from her own funds, this is, in effect, an issue between Lynne Spears and her lawyers, and there is no legal basis for placing Britney Spears in the middle of it."
In the docs, Britney's lawyer claims the singer "has for decades been her family's sole breadwinner, supporting her entire family." And, to that point, the "Toxic" singer's lawyer says that if Britney "were to voluntarily agree that Lynne Spears should receive an additional payment from her, that would be her choice" but that Lynne's request "is entirely unsupported by law or equity and must be rejected for these reasons alone."
In an effort to underscore Rosengart's claim that Britney has been the family's sole breadwinner, the docs state that "it warrants nothing that Lynne Spears has for at least a decade resided in a large, expensive house owned by Britney Spears in Kentwood, Louisiana, for which her daughter has also continuously -- and generously -- paid Lynne Spears' utilities, telephone services, insurance, property taxes, landscaping, pool work, pest control, repairs, and maintenance, totaling approximately $1.7 million."
But, in court documents obtained by ET, Lynne's attorneys filed a response to Britney's request saying that Lynne's attorney fees should be paid because "her involvement in the matter at hand signified the beginning of the end of Ms. Spears' conservatorship." Lynne's attorney, in the response, called Britney's objection to payment "quite an astounding turn of events."
According to the docs, Lynne's lawyers argue that "it is undeniable that but for Lynne Spears’ support as mother, and her lawyers’ relentless advocacy in attempting to modify and terminate the conservatorship over those two-and-a-half years, the status quo would have continued."
Lynne's lawyers also claim, among other things, that Britney pleaded "with her mother to find a way to get involved in the conservatorship to obtain relief from the incredibly abusive acts of her father, the then-conservator of both the person and the estate of Ms. Spears."
There's also a list of alleged "milestones" that Lynne's lawyers cited, like, "within a month of Lynne Spears becoming formally involved, for example, the personal restrictions on Ms. Spears began to be removed." They also claim that "within three months of Lynne Spears' formal involvement, Ms. Spears' medical treatment was dramatically modified" and Britney "was given the right to choose her own doctor."
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