SPEARS' LAWYER: 'POP STAR'S ESTATE IS WORTH $40 MILLION'

BRITNEY SPEARS' fortune came to the fore in court on Monday (04Feb08) as part of her ongoing legal battles for custody of her kids and control of her finances.

With the pop star committed to a psychiatric hospital, her new attorney Adam Streisand represented her in court and was asked to reveal details of the singer's worth.

This comes after her father Jamie was given control of his troubled daughter's financial and legal affairs in an emergency hearing on Friday (01Feb08).

Streisand, who is Barbra Streisand's second cousin, asked the court commissioner to reconsider Jamie Spears' new role as conservator of his client's.

According to TMZ.com, Streisand asked for Spears' business manager, Howard Grossman, to be named conservator.

In his argument, the attorney told the court his client's estate is worth $40 million (GBP20 million), and he revealed she is currently in the middle of a $17 million (GBP8.5 million) tax audit.

Streisand lost his bid to overturn the conservatorship ruling after the judge declined to change Friday's order. The matter will be revisited at a hearing on 14 February (08).

Meanwhile, the court also imposed a ban on Spears engaging in any form of communication with her self-proclaimed manager, Sam Lutfi.

Monday was a big day in court for Spears - even though she wasn't physically there.

Another lawyer, Anne Kiley, was in court for the latest hearing into Spears' child custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline and his attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan.

That hearing was quickly rescheduled to 19 February (08).

Outside the court, a frustrated Kaplan, Federline's lawyer, said, "It's a very fluid landscape that's changing day by day."