Rapper 50 Cent can keep using his lawyer Brett Kimmel after beating a bid from ex-girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins to have him thrown off the case.

Tompkins - who the star is battling over a home he owns, and she lived in until it was burned down earlier this year - claimed Kimmel had a conflict of interest, because she attempted to hire him to represent her during her child support battle with 50 Cent three years ago.

But Kimmel and the rapper - who has an eleven year old son, Marquis, with Tompkins - successfully argued the two cases are unrelated and that Kimmel never had an attorney-client relationship with her.

New York judge Carol Edmead has thrown out the bid.

50 Cent - real name Curtis Jackson - is attempting to overturn a court decision to freeze insurance money on the New York house.