Blake Full of life is searching for $8 million from Justin Baldoni to pay authorized charges and prices that flowed from heading off a defamation lawsuit he filed as a part of the sprawling courtroom battle over the filming of It Ends With Us.
The determine, disclosed in a bid for legal professional charges on Tuesday, represents a portion of what Full of life spent over the course of the litigation and her final likelihood at any financial compensation except she decides to file one other lawsuit.
The struggle spilled into courtroom in 2024 after Full of life publicized allegations of sexual harassment on the set of the movie and a smear marketing campaign to undermine her popularity. The case settled final month with no payout to the actress, although she preserved her proper to recuperate damages and authorized prices underneath a California regulation supposed to protect sexual harassment victims from retaliatory defamation claims.
A federal choose earlier this month denied her bid for damages however discovered that she’s entitled to recuperate her lawyer charges. It’s believed to be among the many first functions of the state regulation, some extent Full of life frames as a serious victory.
“Due to this landmark determination, these contemplating utilizing a lawsuit as a weapon of intimidation have been placed on discover that there are penalties for doing so,” stated a spokesperson for the actress in an announcement. “The worth of this ruling is within the precedent it creates, the accountability it imposes, and the safety it gives to those that might sooner or later discover themselves dealing with related retaliation for talking the reality.”
Full of life was represented by Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Esra Hudson of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, premier attorneys in advanced employment and first modification points. The ask for $8 million represents her invoice from beating Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit throughout six months in early 2025.
Throughout that point, Gottlieb billed $457,000 over 224 hours, in accordance with a courtroom doc. His typical hourly charge was discounted 15 % for a mean charge of $2,187 over the course of the litigation. In complete, his agency was paid roughly $4.5 million.
Hudson, additionally colead counsel for Full of life, equally agreed to a reduction for Full of life, whose invoice from the agency totals an estimated $2.9 million.
Of their bid for charges, the attorneys burdened they succeeded in “each conceivable measure” by securing dismissal of Baldoni’s lawsuit, which they known as a “gross abuse of the authorized system” meant to retaliate towards Full of life.
In lower than two years of litigation, the courtroom docket for the case reached practically 1,500 entries, with intensive authorized and public relations maneuvering by either side. Bryan Freedman, a lawyer for Baldoni, estimated that it value Full of life $30 million to $60 million in authorized prices.
“He didn’t get the consequence that they hoped to get on this case,” Freedman stated of Gottlieb. “If you carry a case and also you hope to prevail on that case, in case you have the proof to indicate that you just’re proper, you go to trial, and so it was very easy for us to finish up in a trial.”
The courtroom will determine lawyer charges owed to Full of life after Baldoni recordsdata a reply.
