By now, you’ve likely heard that Blake Lively is suing Justin Baldoni after working with him on It Ends With Us, a film based on the novel by Colleen Hoover. Lively is suing Baldoni over both attempts to ruin her reputation, as well as sexual harassment against him and others on the set of It Ends With Us, and legal expert Gregory Doll has given his predictions on the future of the situation.
Earlier this evening, PEOPLE spoke with Gregory Doll about what could happen in the future of the sexual harassment lawsuit between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. He said there’s a possibility that the battle could be taken to trial if the two of them don’t work out a “mediation solution.” While it might be possible, it doesn’t seem likely. Earlier this weekend, Baldoni’s Lawyer spoke with PEOPLE and claimed that Lively only wished to “fix her negative reputation,” and said her claims were “false, outrageous and intentionally solacious with an intent to publicly hurt.”
However, on the other side of things, Lively spoke with The New York Times to disclose her intentions: “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.” It seems the two have quite a bit of work to do to come to an understanding, otherwise we might be gearing up for a full-blown trial on the matter.
There might not be any hope of Lively and Baldoni coming to an agreement on their own, but Doll seems to believe that the California Civil Rights Department may “try to mediate a solution with the employer,” along with the studio. According to him, if everything stays rocky and the two can’t settle, “they’ll dismiss and give [Lively] what’s called the right to sue letter. [This] means that she can go to court now and submit her claim there.”
He continues, “the most likely cases that don’t [settle] are the ones like these where it gets intensely personal between two people. The reason is… when you get into what we call discovery, when you are exchanging documents and you find out some of the things that happen behind the scenes that you didn’t know about, the plaintiff gets outraged. She’s going to see more texts and more emails and more damages… and it might be like ‘I’m taking this to trial where I’m going to expose this whole thing’“
Gregory Doll seems to believe that there’s a higher chance that mediation will happen, rather than the case going to trial, but things are still up in the air. He speaks on how Blake Lively already did what she intended to, to “expose what he was doing,” and there’s a good chance she’s not going to want to spend the next several years dealing with a lawsuit. Her primary goal was to spread the word, to put a stop to the things going on behind closed doors while opening eyes and hopefully protecting others in the future.
Doll, however, believes that Baldoni is going to “one hundred percent” sue Lively back, saying “I could see a small exception where they wouldn’t, but based on what I have observed, it’s almost guaranteed that he will file a counterclaim.”
