Britney Spears is finally allowed to choose her own lawyer in the ongoing conservatorship battle

• Britney Spears is now allowed to hire her own lawyer in her conservatorship case.
• Spears' previous court-appointed lawyer Sam Ingham filed to resign on July 6.
• The pop star gave an explosive testimony in June, asking to end her "abusive" conservatorship.
• In her passionate plea on Wednesday, Spears asked for charges to be pressed against her father.

Britney Spears can finally pick her own lawyer in her legal battle over her 13-year-long conservatorship.

The ruling comes just over a week after Spears' previous court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham, III, filed to resign on July 6. David Nelson, of the law firm Loeb & Loeb, also submitted his resignation. In 2020, Ingham had sought court approval to have Loeb & Loeb assist him in upcoming litigation.

At Wednesday's conservatorship hearing, Judge Brenda Penny approved Nelson and Ingham's resignation and also approved a request to represent Spears filed by high-profile celebrity attorney and former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart. TMZ first reported that Rosengart was Spears' top pick for a new attorney.

Spears' wish to hire her own attorney was previously supported by her mother Lynne, who filed a petition to the court on July 6 requesting that her daughter be allowed to hire her own lawyers. According to the court filing, Lynne said Spears has been able to care for herself "for the past many years."

Spears claimed Ingham previously told her it's 'not good' to speak up about the conservatorship

Ingham had represented Spears since the start of her conservatorship in 2008.

At the time of Ingham's resignation filing earlier in July, sources told TMZ that the lawyer was upset with Spears' June testimony, and said Ingham "regularly gave Britney options" in the case.

During her explosive testimony at her June 23 conservatorship hearing, Spears said that Ingham had advised the pop star against speaking up about the conservatorship, which she called "abusive."

"My lawyer, Sam, has been very scared for me to go forward because he's saying if I speak up, I'm being overworked in that facility of that rehab place, that rehab place will sue me," Spears said of Ingham.

She added: "I've been talking to him like three times a week now. We've kind of built a relationship but I haven't really had the opportunity by my own self to actually handpick my own lawyer by myself. And I would like to be able to do that."

Early during the hearing on Wednesday and after the motion to appoint Rosengart was accepted, Ingham and Britney Spears had a tense exchange where Ingham said that Spears was still reaching out to him during the proceeding and recommended she speak for herself or reach out to Rosengart directly.

"I didn't mean to, I didn't have his [Rosengart's] number saved," Spears said, rejecting the claim that she was still asking Ingham for legal advice.

Spears would later deliver an emotional testimony to the court, asking for her father to be removed from her conservatorship, and for charges to be pressed for the abuse of the conservatorship.

Rosengart said, "the question is, why doesn't Mr. Spears voluntarily step aside from the conservatorship today?"

Throughout his full-bodied defense of Mrs. Spears, Rosengart added that the "conservatorship was probably not necessary in 2008 in the first place."

The next hearing is set to take place on September 29, 2021, at 1:30 p.m. PT.