Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni set for intense legal showdown as tensions rise

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's explosive legal showdown is expected to intensify before a potential settlement.

Speaking to PEOPLE magazine, Gregory Doll, a lawyer from Doll Amir & Eley in Los Angeles who does not represent any party and is not involved in the case, shared, "It's very nasty, and I think it's going to get nastier."

He added, "It's going to be a very consuming, very difficult, very challenging time for the parties going ahead. I think they both got great lawyers, but they're going to pay a lot of money and it's going to be a lot of emotional turmoil."

Doll pointed to the strong words exchanged between Lively's and Baldoni's teams, saying, "Now that they're at this critical point in the case where they've laid these very detailed complaints out against each other with all these very serious allegations, I think they're going to want to find out everything that happened that they didn't know about."

For the unversed, the 37-year-old Gossip Girl actress took legal action against the 41-year-old Baldoni, claiming he sexually harassed her on the set of their 2024 movie It Ends With Us and started a public smear campaign to "destroy" her reputation after she spoke out.

Two of Jane the Virgin actor's colleagues at his production company, Wayfarer, and his publicists were also named in the case.

Last week, Baldoni filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist.

He argued that Lively was the one who smeared him and said she tried to take control of the movie and its promotion.

The Clouds star also accused them of extortion and defamation.

Additionally, Baldoni filed a separate $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times, which published Lively's first accusations in a December 21 article.

Notably, the judge in the Lively vs. Baldoni lawsuits, Lewis Liman from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, has scheduled a pre-trial meeting for February 12.

Shedding light on the meeting, Doll articulated that they would work out the details at this conference.

"They talk about what is the likely expectation for a trial date estimate? How long do we need to have discovery? How many witnesses are going to be deposed? What kind of documents are you going to be seeking from one another? When should we set a trial, and for how long should we estimate that trial will last? Is it going to be a one-week trial, a two-week trial, a four-week trial?" Doll revealed.

It is pertinent to mention that Judge Liman will give a schedule after the meeting, including dates for finishing the discovery process and submitting summary motions.