Justin Baldoni challenges Blake Lively’s multimillion-dollar legal bill

A new court filing shows that Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios have asked a federal judge to reject or significantly reduce Blake Lively’s request for more than $8 million in legal fees and litigation costs.

According to the filing, Justin Baldoni’s legal team described the request as excessive. They argued that the billing records included more than 7,070 billable hours handled by 82 different timekeepers, making the overall amount unreasonable.

The lawyers claimed that several attorneys attended the same court hearings and billed for meetings, discussions and strategy sessions with one another.

They also argued that large amounts of time were spent on legal research and online investigations.

To support their position, Justin Baldoni’s legal team compared the request with legal fees sought by The New York Times in a related defamation case.

They noted that the newspaper requested only $181,622.70 after successfully getting a similar claim dismissed.

In response, the filing argued that Blake Lively had failed to provide enough evidence to prove that the requested legal fees and costs were reasonable. The lawyers asked the court to deny the request completely.

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Court records show that Blake Lively is seeking $7,495,526.87 in attorneys’ fees along with $539,514.01 in litigation expenses.

The request comes after the court dismissed Justin Baldoni’s defamation-related counterclaims.

Although the main legal dispute between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively has already been resolved, the disagreement over legal costs remains active.

The judge will now decide whether the requested amount should be approved, reduced or rejected.