(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Oh, baby, baby! The competition for 2021 Lawyer of the Year honors was not a close one, not even one little bit. Our top candidate took home more than 50% of the vote, while our second-place finisher had just 11% of the total tally. In fact, the new titleholder secured almost 150 more votes than this year’s silver medalist.
Before we announce which luminary lawyer prevailed, let’s review Above the Law’s past Lawyers of the Year:
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- 2007: Loyola 2L
- 2008: President Barack Obama
- 2009: Justice Sonia Sotomayor
- 2010: Law School Transparency’s Kyle McEntee and Patrick Lynch
- 2011: Professor Paul Campos
- 2012: Chief Justice John Roberts
- 2013: Roberta Kaplan
- 2014: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- 2015: Bryan “Law Hawk” Wilson
- 2016: Don McGahn
- 2018: Michael Avenatti
- 2019: Christopher “Eat a Bowl of Dicks” Hook
- 2020: Marc Elias
In a year where some of the most important news circled around the frivolous litigation in the wake of 2020’s presidential election, it makes sense that the lawyer who came out on top had … absolutely nothing to do with it. America needed a break from lawyers trying to protect “FREEDUMB,” and voted for an attorney who was trying to free one of the country’s most beloved pop stars.
In the end, it was Mathew Rosengart, the Greenberg Traurig partner who succeeded in freeing Britney Spears from more than a decade of conservatorship who took home the title in our 2021 Lawyer of the Year competition. He entered the superstar’s legal life this past summer, and by November, the conservatorship was no more. Rosengart earned 56% of the vote in our annual contest, and he continues to earn praise from not just his client, but all of her superfans. Because she’s stronger than yesterday, here are some high compliments from Ms. Spears:
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Congratulations to our Lawyer of the Year finalists, and very special congratulations to our 2021 Lawyer of the Year, Mathew Rosengart. Thanks to his zealous representation, Britney Spears is no longer overprotected but in control of her own life. Though his firm’s bills may be quite high, her freedom is simply priceless. Thanks to Biglaw’s “zaddy” not just for freeing Britney, but for making legislators take a closer look into conservatorship laws and inspiring a new generation to consider going into the legal profession.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.