Judge Ends Lindsay Lohan's Formal Probation

Let this further support the idea that maybe Lindsay Lohan has changed - and that the right people have noticed.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner Thursday released an overjoyed Lohan from two years spent on occasionally violated supervised probation, the Associated Press reported. The 25-year-old "Mean Girls" and "Herbie: Fully Loaded" star's legal entanglements began with multiple 2007 DUI arrests and continued with a 2010 probation violation and a 2011 jewelry-theft charge.

There was a time in which Lohan looked doomed as Sautner became fed up with her lax pace toward completing her community service requirement - including being told by a homeless shelter not to come back - and skipping out on mandatory counseling and therapy sessions.

She did jail time in 2010 when she didn't meet her deadline to complete court-ordered alcohol education courses stemming from two 2007 DUI arrests. She relapsed during court-ordered rehab and ended up in the Betty Ford Center. There, she threw down with a center employee, and could've landed in court again. Then came Lohan nicking a $2,500 necklace from a store near her Venice, Calif. home.

Nevertheless, Sautner gave her a last "last chance," holding her to the counseling sessions and assigning her to clean-up duty at the Los Angeles County morgue last year. By Thursday, she'd run the table and completed Sautner's every request.

"I just want to say thank you for being fair. It's really opened a lot of doors for me," Lohan told Sautner.

Sautner did caution Lohan that her informal probation remains in effect until May 2014, thanks to the theft charge. Any further trouble, and that 2011 misstep could still come back to haunt her to the tune of a 245-day jail sentence.

"You need to live your life in a more mature way, stop the nightclubbing and focus on your work," Sautner warned Lohan. There's more than enough work to focus on, too. She's set for a future guest spot on "Glee". Though it had her critics, her well-promoted night hosting "Saturday Night Live" delivered impressive ratings. She's also set to play Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor in the Lifetime biopic "Richard and Liz", chronicling the storied romantic history between the two iconic actors.