Justin Baldoni’s legal team has countered Blake Lively’s request for the director of It Ends With Us to cover nearly $8 million in legal fees following their recent settlement.
In a court document acquired by Us Weekly on Monday, July 13, Baldoni’s attorneys, Ellyn S. Garofalo and Bryan Freedman, stated, “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.”
The legal team representing Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios issued a strong rebuttal to Lively’s June 29 request, which demanded that the filmmaker be liable for $8,035,040.88 in legal fees and additional costs. This amount was criticized as excessive by Freedman, 61, and Garofalo in their filing on Monday. According to TMZ, this court filing was first reported by them.
“This is anything but a typical fee motion,” the lawyers emphasized in their motion presented on Monday.
His legal advisors compared Lively’s demand to a case involving the New York Times, which sought $181,622.70 in legal fees “to dismiss precisely the same defamation claim,” referring to Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against the publication. (Baldoni had filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times for alleged involvement in a “smear campaign” against Lively, but the case was dismissed in June 2025.)
Monday’s motion criticized the “excessive” expectation for Baldoni, 42, to cover 7,070.20 billable legal hours “billed by no fewer than 82 timekeepers, to obtain the dismissal of a single defamation claim at the pleading stage.”
“The most cursory review of Lively’s submission shows multiple lawyers at the same hearings, numerous charges for lawyers conferencing, conferring, or strategizing with one another, and to put it mildly, extremely excessive research and online investigation,” Baldoni’s lawyers argued.
Baldoni ultimately asked for the $8 million request from Lively, 38, to be denied outright or “substantially reduced.” It will now be up to Judge Lewis J. Liman to determine the exact costs that Baldoni will be required to pay, if anything.
Us reached out to representatives for both Baldoni and Lively for comment.
In December 2024, Lively sued her It Ends With Us costar and director for sexual harassment and orchestrating an alleged smear campaign against her. Baldoni vehemently denied Lively’s accusations and countersued, though his lawsuit was thrown out of court in June 2025.
Following the dismissal of Baldoni’s countersuit, lawyers for both sides engaged in a lengthy discovery process that included text messages from Taylor Swift, Ryan Reynolds, Jenny Slate, and Ben Affleck being released through the court.
Justin Baldoni; Blake Lively Getty Images (2); Frazer Harrison; Dimitrios Kambouris/TIME
As a May trial date approached, Baldoni and Lively’s attorneys released a joint statement on May 4 announcing that they had resolved the broader legal conflict.
“The final product – the movie It Ends With Us – is a source of pride to everyone involved in bringing it to fruition. Raising awareness and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors – and all survivors – is a goal we stand behind,” Lively and Baldoni expressed through their attorneys to Us on May 4. “We recognize the challenges presented by the process and acknowledge that the concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard.”
Their statement continued, “We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
However, the legal battle continued on June 12 when Judge Liman ruled that Baldoni was liable to cover Lively’s legal fees under a 2023 California law designed to protect sexual abuse accusers from retaliatory defamation suits. (Liman denied Lively’s request for triple damages and punitive damages.)
On June 29, Lively’s lawyers requested that Judge Liman award the actress $8,035,040.88 in attorneys’ fees and litigation costs related to Baldoni’s dismissed defamation suit. This sum included $7,495,526.87 in attorneys’ fees and $539,514.01 in legal costs and expenses incurred as part of the “successful defense of the Wayfarer Action.”
Blake Lively’s lawyer is addressing claims that the actress and Justin Baldoni spent a whopping $60 million on dueling lawsuits. On Monday, May 4, the It Ends With Us costars announced that they had settled their legal battle after Lively, 38, sued Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios for sexual harassment, retaliation and breach of contract, […]
“Thanks to this landmark decision, those considering using a lawsuit as a weapon of intimidation have been put on notice that there are consequences for doing so,” Lively’s attorneys said in a statement to Us at the time. “The value of this ruling is in the precedent it creates, the accountability it imposes, and the protection it provides to those who may one day find themselves facing similar retaliation for speaking the truth.”
Judge Liman gave Baldoni’s attorneys until July 13 to respond, which facilitated Freedman’s motion to the court on Monday.
Ahead of this latest legal filing, Justin and his wife, Emily Baldoni, broke their silence with an Instagram video message on Wednesday, July 8.
“We are healing, and if you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear,” Justin stressed. “It looks different every day, and we have had to rethink for ourselves what is real and what matters and it’s this, it’s our family, it’s our friends, it’s our community [who] have been there for us, it’s our faith.”
He went on, “I think we’re closer and more devoted and steadfast in our faith than we’ve ever been. Also, and this has been on both of our hearts, there were so many of you who, when we didn’t have a voice, were our voice. … So many of you had discernment and you used your intuition and you trusted that, and you have given your time to fight for us. Thank you does not feel like enough, but we’re here in large part because of so many of you and all of our friends and family.”
