Will the judge agree with Justin Baldoni that Blake Lively's request for legal fees is excessive?

U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled that Blake Lively's request for legal fees from Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios was excessive, awarding her roughly $400,000 rather than the approximately $8 million she had sought. Liman granted $363,245.40 in attorneys' fees and $44,206.35 in costs, a total of $407,451.75, about five percent of Lively's $8,035,040.88 request. The judge found that while her counsel's billing rates were not unreasonable, the number of hours for which Lively sought reimbursement was, and held she was entitled only to fees tied to defending against Baldoni's defamation claim, not the full litigation. The award excluded time Lively's team spent on tasks such as media strategy and press-coverage review, which Liman said were not integral to the defamation defense. The ruling followed Liman's earlier dismissal of Baldoni and Wayfarer's roughly $400 million lawsuit accusing Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and others of defamation and civil extortion, itself a response to Lively's sexual harassment and retaliation allegations stemming from the production of "It Ends With Us." The community forecast on this question, at 79% YES, correctly anticipated that the judge would side with Baldoni in finding Lively's fee request excessive.