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- Britney Spears is paying the salary of a lawyer she didn't choose for herself, The New Yorker said.
- The court-appointed attorney can charge up to $10,000 a week, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
- Spears has a weekly spending allowance of $2,000 a week, financial documents show.
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Britney Spears' lawyer of 13 years was appointed without her say, and charges huge fees that outstrip her own cost of living, according to a new, lengthy New Yorker report on her conservatorship by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino.
Sam Ingham was assigned to represent Spears in 2008 after she was deemed incapable of managing her own affairs, and has been on her payroll since.
Scrutiny of her conservatorship has soared since Spears made a public court appearance seeking to end the arrangement, arguing that it was cruel and abusive.
Spears pays for Ingham's work on her behalf despite not having chose him. Her fortune also covers the legal fees of those running her conservatorship who want the arrangement to continue.
The New Yorker article highlighted that Spears' outlay on Ingham in comparable to her total spending on herself:
"Ingham remains in the role; Spears covers his annual salary of five hundred and twenty thousand dollars. (Her own living expenses in 2019 were $438,360.)"
Other reports have described the $520,000 figure as a maximum, of which Ingham receives an amount determined by the hours he works.
Ingham is paid $475 an hour, The New York Times said. His salary is capped at $10,000 per week, an amount approved by the court, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which would equate to $520,000 per year if he got the full amount every week.
In 2019, Ingham made about $373,000 for his work with Spears, The New York Times said. The outlet said that since 2008 he has been paid around $3 million.
Recent financial documents show that Spears is limited to a $2,000 weekly allowance, The New York Times said. In 2012, despite being paid millions to appear as a judge on "The X Factor," she was unable to cover a $1,300 bill for dinner with a friend in Las Vegas, per the New Yorker.
In 2018, according to recent financial documents, she spent $400,000 on living total expenses. She spent $438,360 in 2019, per The New Yorker.
Ingham has faced criticism after Spears claimed that he hadn't informed her of her right to ask to end the conservatorship. Before the public hearing, his dissociated himself from anything Spears might say.
In 2018, according to documents cited by ET, she spent $1.1 million of legal and conservator fees, covering Ingham as well as the rest of the legal work that goes into maintaining the arrangement.
This total includes payments to attorneys representing the conservators whom Spears alleges have been "abusive" to her, The New York Times reported. Hr conservatorship obligates her to cover all legal bills, the paper said.
Recent court documents seen by The New Yorker show that her father, Jamie Spears, also billed Spears nearly $900,000 for hundreds of hours of work by PR specialists between October 2020 and February 2021.