Interview with ACLU lawyer on conservatorship

Zoe Brennan-Krohn: My name is Zoe Brennan-Krohn, and I am a Staff Attorney at the ACLU Disability Rights Program.

Alex: Now, I'd like to have a discussion with you about the subject of conservatorship and guardianships. Many of us have never really heard of or seen that term anywhere until Britney Spears' situation, with her going to court in an attempt to be released from her father's conservatorship. So now, many more people have been exposed to that word. Can you explain the terms "conservatorship" and "guardianship" for us?

Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. So, conservatorship and guardianship are used interchangeably in different states, they refer to the same concept. Some states use the word conservatorship, some states use the word guardianship. But the concept is a system where a person, because of a disability, has their rights taken away from them in court. So it's usually another person goes to the court and asks the judge to take away the person's civil rights to say, because this person has a disability, or because I think this person has a disability, they are asking the judge to take away their rights. To say, "This person can't make their own choices anymore". And if it's granted, then, that's exactly what happens. The judge orders another person to make choices for the person with disabilities. And that system is called a conservatorship or a guardianship. And it is actually quite common, although you're right, that it's not something that people have been particularly aware of in the general public until Britney Spears. There are actually estimated to be more than a million people in the United States in conservatorships or guardianships.

Alex: So once a court has ordered a conservatorship or a guardianship, only the court can rescind that order. It's up to the judge and a court's decision at that point, right? I'm sure that's quite challenging. I'm curious, have you seen deaf, or deaf individuals with additional disabilities being impacted by a conservatorship? If someone is 'stuck' in a conservatorship, how hard is it to get out of one if it's a case where that may not be necessary? What is your experience with that?

Zoe: Yeah, you're right that once you're in a conservatorship, the court, the judge has the control. They're the only one who can lift the conservatorship. And judges tend to be reluctant to do that, which is part of why we see a lot of conservatorships that go on for a very long time. Once you're in it, if you go to the judge and you say, I'm doing great, I want to get out of the conservatorship. A lot of times judges will say, well, that shows that it's working. So you should stay in it. And if you go to the judge and you're having a hard time, then that will also be used. The judge will say, well, look, you're not doing well. Of course you need the conservatorship. So it is very, very hard to get out of them. And people can really get kind of stuck in a sort of like a Catch-22 that makes it very hard to get out. And as for deaf and deaf disabled people, we unfortunately have very little data about conservatorships across the board. How many people exactly are in them, what types of disabilities they have. I don't personally know of people who are deaf, who have been in conservatorships or at risk of conservatorships. But I'm sure it's happening. And partly, you know, I work with a lot of deaf people in the criminal legal system. People in prison, people on probation and parole, separate from conservatorships and guardianships. But one of the things that I see a lot and my clients experience a lot, is that they are not... they don't get the communication access they need to understand the criminal process, to communicate with their lawyers, to communicate with judges. And I'm sure that that is happening as much or more in the conservatorship or guardianship system. I'm sure there are many deaf and deaf disabled people who don't know what a guardianship or conservatorship is, they get very complicated papers they're supposed to fill out that are in English, and some of them don't use English. So I'm sure there are ways that audism and that lack of accommodations for people, for deaf people in particular, really compound the problems of how easy it is to get into conservatorships and how hard it is to get out of them.

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I think, you know, the Britney Spears case has really brought a lot of attention to it. And I think it's part of a much broader issue. That Britney Spears is one of many people and, you know, she has so much privilege as well, of course. You know, she's extremely famous. She's not deaf. She has enormous amounts of money. She has all sorts of privilege, and even she is facing this extraordinarily difficult and oppressive system. And so I think it really shows how difficult it is to get out of. And it really makes you think about the number of people who don't have those kinds of privileges that she has, who are even more trapped in that system.

Alex: I appreciate your time, Zoe and Andrea. Thank you so much.

Zoe: Thank you so much. It was really good to talk to you, Alex.