Attorneys for Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni met in court Monday, Feb. 3, for the first time for a 90-minute hearing.
The meeting largely revolved around scheduling going forward but offered insights into upcoming strategy, what's to come and concerns about the case being litigated in the media.
An attorney for Lively, Michael Gottlieb, said they would be moving to dismiss the complaint from Baldoni and that they would file an amended complaint of their own by the end of next week that would add both new claims and new defendants — though they did not say who or what.
Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni, said they plan to dismiss their case against The New York Times in California as the publication has been added to the New York case in an effort to speed things along, saying, "it kind of made no sense at all to be doing this on different coasts."
The New York Times told ABC News in a statement Monday, that referenced their initial one, that their story "was meticulously and responsibly reported" and that they "plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit."
Despite the changes, Freedman indicated their desire to move the case along.
"We would like to move this case along as quickly as possible. There's no reason to wait," Freedman said, noting he wanted to take Lively's deposition as soon as possible.
Lively's attorney said the actress has "suffered an ongoing campaign of retaliation" and is "very eager to have her day in court."
Justin Baldoni sues Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and others in new lawsuitJudge Lewis Liman, who is overseeing the case, said the idea of early depositions is "not going forward" until all parties are decided on in the case, adding, "I'm not going to have people deposed twice, unless there's a really good reason."
Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Leslie Sloane -- Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds' publicist -- also said they would be filing a motion to dismiss regarding the claims against her client and her business, Vision PR, due to what she said were "significant deficits" in the filing." McCawley said Sloane and her company "have been dragged into this as a finger pointing mechanism and we'd like to get them out quite quickly."
The issue of the case being litigated in the press was a major topic of discussion by both lawyers.
Gottlieb said Freedman's public statements have been defamatory and "continue the campaign of retaliation" against Lively, adding, "You can't unring that bell." He added that they are not seeking "a gag order" against Freedman, only for the judge to adopt the rules of professional conduct for lawyers that govern what can be said outside of court.
Freedman signaled he also wanted those rules adopted, saying, "This has not been a one-way street."
Both the Judge and Lively's attorney, though, took issue with an attachment Freedman included on a recently launched website, the document titled "Timeline of Relevant Events."
"The law is pretty clear you can't just attach a factual narrative," Judge Liman told Baldoni's attorney of the lengthy attachment. The judge later stated that sanctions are possible, saying, "The court does have sanction power if it looks like the docket is being abused."
Last month, Judge Liman set a trial date for March 9, 2026, in the stars' ongoing legal battle. At one point in Monday's hearing, the judge also stated that he has the power to move up the trial date if the case is litigated in the press to the point that it becomes untenable. "I don't want to do that," Liman warned but noted that he could.
In a presser after the court session on Monday, Baldoni's lawyer, Freedman, said he was looking forward to "moving the case along as quickly as possible."
"We just couldn't be more pleased with how the case was handled today, how it was managed, and we're going to move as quickly as we possibly can and prove our innocence in a world where sometimes people judge you before they give you a chance. And we're going to change that," Freedman shared.
This hearing was preceded by Lively and Reynolds' legal team filing several letters to Judge Liman addressing what Lively's lawyers call "extrajudicial misconduct" by Baldoni's attorney, Freedman. The judge on Jan. 30 ordered Lively and Baldoni's lawsuits against each other to be consolidated into one case.
In the filings obtained by ABC News, Lively's legal team claims Freedman is influencing "public perception" of the cases and "tainting the jury pool" as well as attempting to "prejudice a jury pool beyond repair" by sharing "false and defamatory statements and character attacks against Ms. Lively" with the media.
In response, Freedman said in part in a statement to ABC News: "Our intention with the upcoming website is to do the exact opposite of what they themselves did when they gave provably false information to the New York Times. We will not be selective, we will not cherry pick and we will not doctor text messages. Both Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds do not yet understand that there isn't one rule for them and one rule for everybody else. If they want to unethically gag the truth by threatening to wield their power in Hollywood, we will fight it every step of the way."
Baldoni's attorneys launched the website in question in the days before Monday's hearing. The website contains an amended version of Baldoni's complaint and a document titled "Timeline of Relevant Events," both published on Jan. 31.
Regarding the amended complaint posted to the website, the Times said: "The Baldoni/Wayfarer legal filings are rife with inaccuracies about The New York Times, including, for example, the bogus claim that The Times had early access to Ms. Lively's state civil rights complaint. Mr. Baldoni's lawyers base their erroneous claim on postings by amateur internet sleuths, who, not surprisingly, are wrong. The sleuths have noted that a version of the Lively state complaint published by The Times carries the date 'December 10' even though the complaint wasn't filed until more than a week later. The problem: that date is generated by Google software and is unrelated to the date when The Times received it and posted it."
Lively accused Baldoni of alleged sexual harassment and accused him and his publicity team of trying to destroy her reputation in a complaint she filed in December with the California Civil Rights Department, which included numerous text messages and communications she claimed were part of a campaign to attack her public image. The New York Times was the first to report Lively's legal complaint. Later that month, Lively then filed a lawsuit in New York against Baldoni and other defendants, formalizing her allegations from her complaint. Baldoni denied the allegations.
The same day of Lively's lawsuit, Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy after it published the story "We Can Bury Anyone," which included reporting on Lively's complaint.
Earlier this month, Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit in New York against Lively and other defendants -- including Reynolds -- for extortion and defamation.
Baldoni accused Lively of trying to take control over the film "It Ends with Us" from him and the studio and attempting to destroy his "personal and professional reputations and livelihood." Lively denied the allegations.
Lively and Reynold's attorney stated they intend to file a motion to "dismiss" Baldoni's lawsuit against them in a court document submitted Jan. 30.
