{"id":750900,"date":"2026-08-27T01:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750900\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T01:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:28:18","slug":"blake-lively-awarded-400000-in-attorneys-fees-in-justin-baldoni-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750900\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Lively Awarded $400,000 in Attorneys Fees in Justin Baldoni Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA judge on Wednesday awarded Blake Lively<\/a> about $400,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees in her dispute with \u201cIt Ends With Us<\/a>\u201d co-star Justin Baldoni<\/a>, well short of the $8 million she had sought<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively and Baldoni settled their 18-month legal war in May, avoiding a federal trial that was scheduled for later that month. At the time, the only loose end was Lively\u2019s motion for attorneys\u2019 fees for having to defend against Baldoni\u2019s failed defamation suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Lewis Liman on Wednesday awarded her $363,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees and another $44,000 in court costs. In his ruling<\/a>, the judge found that Lively was entitled only to the \u201creasonable\u201d fees related to defending against the defamation suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tLiman ruled that while the attorneys\u2019 billing rates were \u201cnot unreasonable,\u201d given the high stakes of the case and the complexity of the issues, \u201c(t)he number of hours for which Lively seeks reimbursement is unreasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLively had asked for $7.5 million in attorneys\u2019 fees and another $540,000 in court costs. Instead, the judge awarded her just double what the New York Times was awarded for defending itself from Baldoni\u2019s defamation case.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaldoni\u2019s attorney, Bryan Freedman, noted that Lively got only 5% of what she asked for.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe ruling is a significant victory for my clients and sends a clear message that, no matter how powerful you may be, the courtroom is not a place to take advantage of the law for your own personal gain,\u201d Freedman said.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively\u2019s attorneys, Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb, took a different view, arguing that the outcome shows \u201cthat there are real consequences of bringing retaliatory lawsuits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs we have said from day one, Blake Lively\u2019s case was never about money\u00a0\u2013 it was\u00a0about accountability,\u201d they said. \u201cShe lifted the curtain for other victims, and set the precedent for others to come forward and expose similar conduct. This result demonstrates that the legal system is not as easily manipulated as social media, and still functions as a force for accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in December 2024, alleging that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios had launched an online smear campaign against her in retaliation for raising complaints about sexual harassment on the set of \u201cIt Ends With Us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBaldoni fired back with a defamation suit, accusing Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, of concocting fake allegations as part of an effort to hijack creative control of the film. He also sued the Times for running a story drawn largely on on the civil rights complaint. That suit was dismissed on the grounds that Lively\u2019s claims were protected by litigation privilege and the paper\u2019s coverage was a fair report of the proceedings.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively sought compensation under a 2023 California law meant to discourage frivolous defamation suits against accusers who come forward with allegations of sexual assault. Lively initially asked for treble damages and punitive damages as well, but Liman previously ruled that those were not available under federal law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge on Wednesday awarded Blake Lively about $400,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees in her dispute with \u201cIt Ends…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[17860,6491,96,25485,17859,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-750900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-blake-lively","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-it-ends-with-us","tag-justin-baldoni","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}