It's Not Just Britney Spears...You Could Be Next
Guardianship Can Destroy Lives
There will come a day when we will all need help navigating life. Age may be the reason. Or a sudden illness, or perhaps a physical disability will impede daily function. If we’re lucky we’ll have a reliable support system to help.
If any of those things happened to you would you expect the justice system could suddenly strip away all your civil rights? That can’t happen in America, right?
It happens all the time, as I explain in my upcoming book, We’re Here to Help - When Guardianship Goes Wrong. Just ask Britney Spears what her life was like for the nearly 14 years she was labeled a “ward of the court.” She was denied the basic right to make her own health, marriage and financial decisions. She couldn’t spend her money, sign a contract, hire her own attorney, freely travel, vote, have a baby, chose her doctors or her work schedule. Her court appointed minders kept saying that, “We’re here to help.”
Guardianships (called conservatorship in some states) are remarkably easy to set in motion. All it takes is for someone (from an angry relative or business partner to a landlord or former lover) to get a lawyer to draw up a petition that says the targeted person is unable to care for themselves and is vulnerable to exploitation. Judges routinely approve the request and the almost unstoppable guardianship wheels are set in motion. Once established guardianships/conservatorships are next to impossible to terminate. It is estimated that up to 2 million Americans currently live under this kind of court control.
Some of these arrangements work out well especially if a judge appoints a trusted relative or friend as the guardian. But frequently total strangers—for-profit professional guardians who charge up to $600 an hour—are chosen to, literally, take over a ward’s life. The court immediate confiscates all the ward’s money and property and transfers it into the guardian’s control. A collective $50 billion is seized by the courts every single year in this country creating a tasty target for predator lawyers, guardians and their minions. All the inside players are paid for with the ward’s money. And it’s not unusual for a judge to allow a guardian to ignore a ward’s carefully prepared will, trusts and estate plans.
The book offers readers practical advice to protect themselves and their loved ones from conscription into this oftentimes dehumanizing part of the justice system.
This is a dense topic with many twists and turns, and it took me some 8 years to fully investigate and write this book. The horrifying real life effects of guardianship/conservatorship, the emotional and financial toll it has caused to both wards and their often helpless families, cries out for justice.
Please read it and protect yourself.
We’re Here to Help - When Guardianship Goes Wrong, Brandeis University Press, Out Sept. 19, 2023. Available here.