(CNN) An independent lawyer who's a former federal judge will pick through Michael Cohen's documents before federal prosecutors in New York can use them in their criminal investigation of him, while Cohen's team looks through them at the same time, a judge decided Thursday.

Barbara Jones, who's also a former prosecutor in Manhattan and now works at a large private law firm, will review the documents to make sure investigators can't use any confidential legal work Cohen did for clients like President Donald Trump, the Trump Organization and Sean Hannity. She will ultimately decide what is considered privileged material that prosecutors can't see.

Judge Kimba Wood outlined a general framework for how the process will be managed but left many decisions to be made by the special master. She said the documents that were not considered privileged should be turned over to prosecutors as soon as that determination is made by Jones.

The prosecutors have asked for a quick review. They cited Trump's comments to Fox News Thursday morning -- after the President said Cohen, performed a "tiny, tiny little fraction" of legal work -- to argue that the documents are "unlikely to contain voluminous privileged documents."

Prosecutors seized the documents early in April in a raid of Cohen's house, office and a hotel room where he was staying. Since then, Cohen's attorneys fought to see the documents before prosecutors could use them and also asked for a special master. Trump's lawyers have objected to a special master. Early Thursday, the prosecutors from the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan dropped their objection to an independent reviewer.

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