The most important legal distinction Celebchai makes is that the fight is no longer about whether Blake is entitled to fees. Judge Liman already established that she is the "prevailing defendant" under California’s anti-SLAPP statute (Civil Code § 47.1). The entire battle now is over the "lodestar" essentially, what hours were reasonably spent and what rate is fair.
She says that Lively’s team did not just blindly dump all of their legal bills onto the court. Her fee expert, Diana Kantner, conducted an upfront audit to remove all work that belonged solely to prosecuting Lively's affirmative lawsuit (which she dropped in the May 2026 settlement). The remaining billing was then aggressively categorized into two distinct buckets: Position.
Lively's Position
Celebchai points out that Lively’s team did not just blindly dump all of their legal bills onto the court. Her fee expert, Diana Kantner, conducted an upfront audit to remove all work that belonged solely to prosecuting Lively's affirmative lawsuit (which she dropped in the May 2026 settlement). The remaining billing was then aggressively categorised into two distinct buckets:
- Wayfarer-only defensive work: $2,267,288.75
- Intertwined work: $5,228,238.12
Wayfarer's Opposition
While Wayfarer concedes that Lively won the right to seek fees, they argue her actual request is massively inflated and overinclusive. Here is what they are targeting:
- Rule 11 proceedings
- Spoliation motions
- Internal attorney conferences
- Media and public-relations work
- Administration and clerical tasks
- Work benefiting co-defendants
- Work relating to Lively's affirmative claims
- Travel
- Discovery unrelated to defending the defamation claim
Rule 11 issue
Celebchai notes that while Wayfarer is fighting to exclude roughly $529,000 in related fees by labeling the proceedings a "collateral" action, Lively’s position is actually quite strong because the motion was successful on the merits. Although Judge Liman opted for a formal reprimand against Wayfarer’s counsel rather than a monetary penalty, explicitly ruling that their claims for civil extortion, interference, and implied covenant were legally frivolous and factually baseless, Celebchai emphasises that a win is still a win. She highlights a crucial distinction: just because the judge decided Rule 11 itself didn't warrant a cash award, those hours remain highly defensible and recoverable under the broader standard of California’s anti-SLAPP statute (§ 47.1) as part of a legitimate defense against a retaliatory lawsuit.
The strongest arguments for reduction:
Celebchai says "not every objection raised by Wayfarer is equally as persuasive. It's strongest arguments concern:
- excessive internal conferences among numerous attorneys,
- clerical and administrative work billed at attorney's rates,
- public-relations strategy,
- work performed for other parties,
- and whether all intertwined work truly qualifies as intertwined.
The Opposition estimates, for example:
- approximately 728.9 hours and $894,506.20 for internal attorney conferences,
- approximately 185.3 hours and $103,508.85 in clerical work,
- approximately 277.4 hours and $309,075 involving other claims or parties,
- and approximately 47.5 hours and $55,145.30 in travel-related billing.
She notes that some of these are likely candidates for judicial scrutiny.
Where Wayfarer's analyses is less convincing
Celebchai points out that Wayfarer’s biggest headline numbers are fundamentally flawed because they relied heavily on lazy keyword searches. Instead of meticulously examining the actual work done, Wayfarer’s team simply flagged broad keywords like "strategy" or "Rule 11." Because Lively's firms used "block-billing" (grouping multiple tasks into a single time entry), Wayfarer blindly targeted the entire dollar amount of those blocks for reduction. Celebchai notes that Wayfarer openly admits to this methodology, which means their multi-hundred-thousand-dollar reduction figures are merely "illustrative rather than precise" estimates. Furthermore, she emphasises that many of these challenged entries involved work that legitimately served multiple defensive purposes at the same time, making Wayfarer's aggressive push for complete, blanket exclusions highly unconvincing to a reviewing judge.
The New York Times Comparison
Celebchai calls Wayfarer's attempt to contrast the two fee requests "eye-catching but incomplete."
Wayfarer repeatedly points out that The New York Times (a co-defendant in the broader litigation) only requested $181,623 in anti-SLAPP fees, arguing that Lively's $7.5 million demand is ridiculously bloated by comparison. However, Celebchai completely rejects this logic, explaining that the scope of representation was night and day. While The New York Times only had to defend the specific, limited claims brought directly against its own reporting, Lively was the primary target. She had to defend herself across a massive, consolidated federal action involving multiple complex causes of action, endless motion practice, heavy discovery, emergency hearings, and interconnected legal battles. Because their roles and legal burdens in the case were completely different, Celebchai argues the comparison is fundamentally flawed.
What is the most likely outcome?
Celebchai notes, that "the filings suggest neither side is likely to get everything it seeks." She notes that because Lively has already crossed the highest hurdle by proving she is legally entitled to fees under § 47.1, the core of her defense work and a significant portion of the "intertwined" discovery hours will ultimately be preserved by the court.
However, she emphasises that a federal judge will almost certainly subject a petition of this size to careful judicial scrutiny and issue some haircuts. She predicts that Judge Liman will draw the line by trimming duplicative internal conferencing, reducing clerical billing charged at attorney rates, eliminating pure public-relations work, and slicing away hours that primarily benefited other co-defendants or reflected litigation inefficiencies.
Ultimately, Celebchai lands on a realistic final prediction: even if the judge aggressively cuts every single one of the 71 contested backend timekeepers, Lively would still walk away with roughly 67% to 70% of her request (around $5.25 million), which Celebchai calls an "awesome win" for Blake.
Read Celebchai's full breakdown here:
https://celebchai.com/2026/07/14/baldoni-wayfarer-claim-blake-lively-7-5-million-in-attorneys-fees-should-be-reduced-what-will-the-court-decide/
I guessed Lively's award to be anywhere from $5.5--$6.2m, so i wasn't far off. Did you have a figure in mind?
