A judge has ordered Justin Baldoni to pay Blake Lively roughly $407,000 in legal fees and costs, bringing a financial coda to their closely watched dispute while rejecting most of the amount she sought.

Judge Lewis Liman awarded Lively $363,245.40 in attorneys’ fees and $44,206.35 in costs. The ruling followed the settlement of the actors’ wider legal battle, which began after Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and fostering a hostile work environment on the set of It Ends With Us. Baldoni denied the allegations and filed a $400 million defamation lawsuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and The New York Times.

The judge found that the lawyers’ hourly rates were “not unreasonable” given the case’s complexity and the “substantial financial and reputational risks” involved.¹ But he concluded that “the number of hours for which Lively seeks reimbursement is unreasonable,” while also criticizing gaps in the documentation submitted to support the claim.²

The award is far below Lively’s request, which was reported at between $8 million and $8.3 million. Baldoni’s attorneys had argued that the demand was “extremely overinclusive and deeply flawed,” citing internal communications, work by dozens of lawyers and costs they said were not adequately substantiated.²

Lively’s legal team presented the decision differently, emphasizing that Baldoni’s defamation case had been dismissed. They called the award “historic” and said the litigation had exposed alleged online smear campaigns targeting women.² Coverage from the Guardian described the ruling more narrowly—as an award of “reasonable” fees that draws a line under the legal fight—while noting that Lively has not publicly discussed the case.³

The contrasting accounts reflect the dispute’s central tension: Lively’s lawyers cast the outcome as accountability for a retaliatory lawsuit, while the ruling itself focused on the limited and properly documented costs that could be recovered.