Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's incarcerated former attorney, has convinced a judge to allow discovery in part of his lawsuit seeking more than $1 million in legal fees against the president's real estate company.

Cohen sued earlier this year, seeking to make the Trump Organization cover the more than $3.8 million in legal fees and criminal penalties for which Cohen is liable. The Trump Organization said it made no open-ended commitment to pay Cohen's legal bills, however, much less the money he was ordered to pay as part of his convictions for tax, election spending and perjury-type offenses.

In a mixed ruling on a motion to dismiss, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joel Cohen on Wednesday agreed that the Trump Organization could not be required to pay Michael Cohen's criminal penalties, which is a position that his lawyers retreated from at oral argument earlier this month. But the judge concluded Cohen's alleged agreement with Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten to have his lawyers' bills covered "is enforceable to the extent it covers legal proceedings and investigations that were pending in July 2017, when the agreement allegedly was made."