A timeline for Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni‘s court battle is taking shape.
Both cases in Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. are now scheduled for trial on March 9, 2026, Judge Lewis J. Liman outlined in an order filed Monday, Jan. 27.
Additionally, a previously set pre-trial hearing — to hash out Lively’s prospective request for a gag order — was set for Feb. 12 but will now happen Feb. 3.
In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Lively, 37, sued Wayfarer Studios, her It Ends With Us director-costar Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath, Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel, crisis publicist Melissa Nathan and more in December, alleging sexual harassment and a smear campaign launched in retaliation to speaking out about misconduct.
In turn, Baldoni, 41, has countersued Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist Leslie Sloane, accusing them of defamation and extortion.
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Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman has called the claims made in Lively’s complaint “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”
About Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit, her lawyers called it “meritless” and “desperate.” They added, in part, “The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
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Legal expert Gregory Doll, a lawyer and partner at Doll Amir & Eley in Los Angeles who is not representing either party, recently told PEOPLE he expects a settlement to happen before Lively and Baldoni get to trial.
“Ninety-two percent of all civil cases settle, so odds are overwhelmingly that the case will settle,” says Doll, noting that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s 2022 defamation trial was the “rare exception.”
Still, the legal battle will likely grow in intensity before any settlement is reached, Doll adds: “It’s very nasty, and I think it’s going to get nastier. … It’s going to be a very consuming, very difficult, very challenging time for the parties going ahead. I think they both got great lawyers, but they’re going to pay a lot of money and it’s going to be a lot of emotional turmoil.”
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