Blake Lively Asked for $8 Million in Legal Fees and the Judge Gave Her About $400,000

Caption: Blake Lively at the 2026 Met Gala. Credit: SWinxy, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

Blake Lively beat Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against her. On August 26 a federal judge decided what that win was worth in legal fees, and the number came in at roughly five percent of what she asked for.

The Number and the Gap

Lively sought approximately $8 million in attorneys’ fees connected to the dismissed suit. The court awarded about $400,000.

Reporting splits on the exact figure. The Associated Press, NBC News, ABC News and Forbes report $400,000, while Reuters and U.S. News report $407,000. The difference is small and the gap against the $8 million request is not.

Why a Fee Award Is Not the Verdict

A fee award follows a dismissal. It does not decide who was right about the underlying conduct, and it is not damages. It reimburses a portion of what a party spent defending itself.

Courts routinely award far less than requested when they find the hours claimed or the rates charged unreasonable for the work involved. The size of the cut is a judgment about the bill, not about the case.

The Warning From the Bench

Alongside the award, the judge issued a warning to both legal teams about public commentary on the case.

That is a small line in the order and a telling one. It signals a court trying to keep a dispute that has run publicly for two years inside the courtroom.

What Is Still Open

Baldoni’s suit against Lively was dismissed. The fee award closes the accounting on that piece of the litigation and does not resolve everything between the two.

For a case that has been fought as much in public as in filings, the August 26 order is a reminder of the arithmetic underneath it. Winning and being made whole are different outcomes, and Lively absorbed most of the bill for the one she won.

The roughly $7.6 million gap between what she asked for and what she received is money already spent. No part of the ruling gets it back.

References: US Judge Awards Blake Lively $407,000 for Legal Bills in Justin Baldoni Dispute, Much Less Than She Sought