Justin Baldoni asks judge to dismiss Blake Lively's request for attorney's fees
Justin Baldoni has asked a judge to dismiss Blake Lively's request for $7,495,526 in attorney's fees or reduce the amount to which she is entitled, according to a court document filed this week.
In the document, filed Monday in a federal district court in the Southern District of New York, lawyers for Baldoni argue that the estimated 7,000 hours Lively's attorneys say they spent on the case is "excessive."
"Lively does not provide billing statements or other records to support her $7.5 million demand, much less allocate fees to her defense of Wayfarer's defamation claim," the filing alleges.
It continues, "Lively fails to meet her burden to present credible evidence showing that the fees and costs she seeks to recover are reasonable, and accordingly, her fee motion should be denied in its entirety."
Baldoni's attorneys state that if the claim is not dismissed, the court should "sharply reduce" her request, before referring to Baldoni's since-dismissed defamation case against The New York Times, which had reported on Lively's initial sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni, filed with the California Civil Rights Department in December 2024.
"At minimum, the Court should substantially reduce the request, using as a benchmark the $181,622.70 the Times sought after securing dismissal of Count II on its separate motion to dismiss -- the same outcome Lively achieved," Baldoni's lawyer's wrote in Monday's filing.
ABC News has reached out to representatives for Baldoni and Lively for comment.
Last month, Lively's attorneys said in a court filing that Baldoni's production company Wayfarer Studios owed the actress $7,495,526.87 in attorneys fees connected to the studio's defamation lawsuit against her, which was dismissed in June last year.
According to that court filing, Lively also sought $539,514.01 in costs and expenses incurred in relation to the dismissed defamation case.
Monday's filing is the latest in a long-running legal dispute between the former "It Ends with Us" co-stars, who first became embroiled in December 2024, when Lively filed her complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the film, which he also directed.
Lively also accused Baldoni and his production company of attempting to orchestrate a smear campaign against her, allegations Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios have vehemently denied.
The two subsequently launched dueling lawsuits against one another in the months that followed, with Baldoni accusing Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, the couple's publicist Leslie Sloane, and others of extortion and defamation, among other things. The lawsuits were consolidated into one suit in January 2025.
Baldoni's lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by Liman in June 2025. The judge later gutted much of Lively's case against Baldoni in April of this year, including claims she was subjected to sexual harassment on set, determining that she could continue to pursue her claims of retaliation against Baldoni's public relations team.
Baldoni, via his Wayfarer production company, and Lively agreed to settle their ongoing dispute in May this year. Liman ruled at the time that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios must pay Lively's attorneys' fees but denied Lively's claim for punitive damages.
