Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Hi can someone explain why she doesn't just limit what she's asking for? By keeping the scope within the context of this situation she can still learn about the different pr players they reached too. I don't get why she's making it so complicated

Her argument would be that due to the anonymous nature of the smear campaign, it's not possible to identify all the parties and phone numbers they communicated with, therefore she wants logs of all calls made during that time period (to somehow ascertain who these parties were, and I'm not sure how one would even do that). The judge ruled that this was overbroad and disproportionate as it would also capture all their personal contacts and doctors, etc (something I have argued in this thread as well).

The judge said she should use other tools to try to ascertain who these parties are (for example, she can serve interrogatories asking them for information, contact lists, and phone numbers about other parties who may have information, and then subpoena phone records of communications between the Wayfarer parties and those parties).

Her argument re the smear campaign is predicated on the delusion that prior to filming with Baldoni, Lively was a popular figure across pop culture commentary sites, and that she moved product. She’s been reviled for years for racial insensitivity at best, and her best-known business foray failed and was broadly mocked

She can’t get what she wants both due to and absent that specific delusion. It is what it is.

Not quite. The argument you are referencing would go to damages, but doesn't really impact her ability to make her underlying case. Her argument is that she was sexually harassed, complained about it, and that Wayfarer retaliated against her for complaining via a PR campaign. None of that is predicated on her being popular or "moving product." That's just a standard harassment/retaliation claim under employment law. And if she can prove it to a fact-finder (jury or judge) then she will win regardless of what her popularity level was prior to the whole thing. She could be widely loathed and still win if she can prove they retaliated against her for her SH claims.

Now, in awarding damages, they'd have to determine what financial losses she incurred as a result of the retaliation. And that's where what you are talking about would come in. If Wayfarer could prove she was widely disliked even before the smear campaign and that their actions did little or nothing to damage her already tarnished reputation, they could greatly reduce the potential damages in the event of a loss.

Agreed. Her reputation is not germane to the SH and retaliation claims. It's relevant to damages.

Wrong.

It’s absolutely germane when she takes as evidence of retaliation social media and her initial complaint cited evidence from SM sites with quotes and nicknames predating her beginning filming of IEWU. She has nothing.

Her retaliation claims rely heavily on text messages between Justin and his PR team explicitly talking about planting stories and seeding social media against her. So she does in fact have something. Some of the SM against her was organic, I'm sure. But she has some very solid evidence that Wayfarer sought to sway public opinion against her and to specifically discredit her reputation in a way that would undermine her credibility if she came forward with SH allegations. She has the texts, she has documents from TAG and Abel outlining their plan. It's not nothing. That's honestly a lot more than most retaliation claims have before heading into discovery. The Jonesworks conflict that led Stephanie Jones to seize materials from Abel has bene a huge boon for Lively's case. I actually don't think she'd ever have brought a lawsuit without it.

“Sought to” is editorializing from her, and the entire question of editing tone signifiers from texts remains a point of interest. I am solidly on team she’s got nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi can someone explain why she doesn't just limit what she's asking for? By keeping the scope within the context of this situation she can still learn about the different pr players they reached too. I don't get why she's making it so complicated

Her argument would be that due to the anonymous nature of the smear campaign, it's not possible to identify all the parties and phone numbers they communicated with, therefore she wants logs of all calls made during that time period (to somehow ascertain who these parties were, and I'm not sure how one would even do that). The judge ruled that this was overbroad and disproportionate as it would also capture all their personal contacts and doctors, etc (something I have argued in this thread as well).

The judge said she should use other tools to try to ascertain who these parties are (for example, she can serve interrogatories asking them for information, contact lists, and phone numbers about other parties who may have information, and then subpoena phone records of communications between the Wayfarer parties and those parties).

Her argument re the smear campaign is predicated on the delusion that prior to filming with Baldoni, Lively was a popular figure across pop culture commentary sites, and that she moved product. She’s been reviled for years for racial insensitivity at best, and her best-known business foray failed and was broadly mocked

She can’t get what she wants both due to and absent that specific delusion. It is what it is.

Not quite. The argument you are referencing would go to damages, but doesn't really impact her ability to make her underlying case. Her argument is that she was sexually harassed, complained about it, and that Wayfarer retaliated against her for complaining via a PR campaign. None of that is predicated on her being popular or "moving product." That's just a standard harassment/retaliation claim under employment law. And if she can prove it to a fact-finder (jury or judge) then she will win regardless of what her popularity level was prior to the whole thing. She could be widely loathed and still win if she can prove they retaliated against her for her SH claims.

Now, in awarding damages, they'd have to determine what financial losses she incurred as a result of the retaliation. And that's where what you are talking about would come in. If Wayfarer could prove she was widely disliked even before the smear campaign and that their actions did little or nothing to damage her already tarnished reputation, they could greatly reduce the potential damages in the event of a loss.

Agreed. Her reputation is not germane to the SH and retaliation claims. It's relevant to damages.

Wrong.

It’s absolutely germane when she takes as evidence of retaliation social media and her initial complaint cited evidence from SM sites with quotes and nicknames predating her beginning filming of IEWU. She has nothing.

Her retaliation claims rely heavily on text messages between Justin and his PR team explicitly talking about planting stories and seeding social media against her. So she does in fact have something. Some of the SM against her was organic, I'm sure. But she has some very solid evidence that Wayfarer sought to sway public opinion against her and to specifically discredit her reputation in a way that would undermine her credibility if she came forward with SH allegations. She has the texts, she has documents from TAG and Abel outlining their plan. It's not nothing. That's honestly a lot more than most retaliation claims have before heading into discovery. The Jonesworks conflict that led Stephanie Jones to seize materials from Abel has bene a huge boon for Lively's case. I actually don't think she'd ever have brought a lawsuit without it.

+1 I have been saying this from day 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi can someone explain why she doesn't just limit what she's asking for? By keeping the scope within the context of this situation she can still learn about the different pr players they reached too. I don't get why she's making it so complicated

Her argument would be that due to the anonymous nature of the smear campaign, it's not possible to identify all the parties and phone numbers they communicated with, therefore she wants logs of all calls made during that time period (to somehow ascertain who these parties were, and I'm not sure how one would even do that). The judge ruled that this was overbroad and disproportionate as it would also capture all their personal contacts and doctors, etc (something I have argued in this thread as well).

The judge said she should use other tools to try to ascertain who these parties are (for example, she can serve interrogatories asking them for information, contact lists, and phone numbers about other parties who may have information, and then subpoena phone records of communications between the Wayfarer parties and those parties).

Her argument re the smear campaign is predicated on the delusion that prior to filming with Baldoni, Lively was a popular figure across pop culture commentary sites, and that she moved product. She’s been reviled for years for racial insensitivity at best, and her best-known business foray failed and was broadly mocked

She can’t get what she wants both due to and absent that specific delusion. It is what it is.

Not quite. The argument you are referencing would go to damages, but doesn't really impact her ability to make her underlying case. Her argument is that she was sexually harassed, complained about it, and that Wayfarer retaliated against her for complaining via a PR campaign. None of that is predicated on her being popular or "moving product." That's just a standard harassment/retaliation claim under employment law. And if she can prove it to a fact-finder (jury or judge) then she will win regardless of what her popularity level was prior to the whole thing. She could be widely loathed and still win if she can prove they retaliated against her for her SH claims.

Now, in awarding damages, they'd have to determine what financial losses she incurred as a result of the retaliation. And that's where what you are talking about would come in. If Wayfarer could prove she was widely disliked even before the smear campaign and that their actions did little or nothing to damage her already tarnished reputation, they could greatly reduce the potential damages in the event of a loss.

Agreed. Her reputation is not germane to the SH and retaliation claims. It's relevant to damages.

Wrong.

It’s absolutely germane when she takes as evidence of retaliation social media and her initial complaint cited evidence from SM sites with quotes and nicknames predating her beginning filming of IEWU. She has nothing.

Her retaliation claims rely heavily on text messages between Justin and his PR team explicitly talking about planting stories and seeding social media against her. So she does in fact have something. Some of the SM against her was organic, I'm sure. But she has some very solid evidence that Wayfarer sought to sway public opinion against her and to specifically discredit her reputation in a way that would undermine her credibility if she came forward with SH allegations. She has the texts, she has documents from TAG and Abel outlining their plan. It's not nothing. That's honestly a lot more than most retaliation claims have before heading into discovery. The Jonesworks conflict that led Stephanie Jones to seize materials from Abel has bene a huge boon for Lively's case. I actually don't think she'd ever have brought a lawsuit without it.

+1 I have been saying this from day 1.

And yet there is nothing to indicate implementation of any plan ever! The most controversial language was Nathan and Abel agreeing that they were astonished that they didn’t have to act against Lively because of her own goals, and they agreed it was “sad” but “don’t like be a c-.”

[Anonymous]

I think she lied and has a good case. Nice guys finish last, and all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi can someone explain why she doesn't just limit what she's asking for? By keeping the scope within the context of this situation she can still learn about the different pr players they reached too. I don't get why she's making it so complicated

Her argument would be that due to the anonymous nature of the smear campaign, it's not possible to identify all the parties and phone numbers they communicated with, therefore she wants logs of all calls made during that time period (to somehow ascertain who these parties were, and I'm not sure how one would even do that). The judge ruled that this was overbroad and disproportionate as it would also capture all their personal contacts and doctors, etc (something I have argued in this thread as well).

The judge said she should use other tools to try to ascertain who these parties are (for example, she can serve interrogatories asking them for information, contact lists, and phone numbers about other parties who may have information, and then subpoena phone records of communications between the Wayfarer parties and those parties).

+1, while this was definitely a loss for Lively's side, the judge communicated a lot of openness to a more narrowly tailored discovery plan. I am a little surprised they didn't just go for that to begin with, I don't totally get the strategy from Lively's legal team here. I know people on here will say "oh it's because Blake is selfish and demanded they ask for everything" but her lawyers are serious people, I don't actually believe they'd file for discovery based on a client's whim -- it would not be that hard to explain even to a demanding or difficult client that you have to go about discovery in a specific way to get what you want.

So I don't totally get it. Michael Gottlieb isn't a dummy and he's had plenty of very demanding clients in the past. This was a calculated choice but I don't fully understand it.

it’s really par for the course to make a broad discovery request that gets narrowed.

That's what happened in the tory lanez and heard and Depp case. I think it’s a waste but I've seen people who have a better understanding at law argure it's just a starting point. Doesn't mean the other party will never get the documents they seek.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi can someone explain why she doesn't just limit what she's asking for? By keeping the scope within the context of this situation she can still learn about the different pr players they reached too. I don't get why she's making it so complicated

Her argument would be that due to the anonymous nature of the smear campaign, it's not possible to identify all the parties and phone numbers they communicated with, therefore she wants logs of all calls made during that time period (to somehow ascertain who these parties were, and I'm not sure how one would even do that). The judge ruled that this was overbroad and disproportionate as it would also capture all their personal contacts and doctors, etc (something I have argued in this thread as well).

The judge said she should use other tools to try to ascertain who these parties are (for example, she can serve interrogatories asking them for information, contact lists, and phone numbers about other parties who may have information, and then subpoena phone records of communications between the Wayfarer parties and those parties).

+1, while this was definitely a loss for Lively's side, the judge communicated a lot of openness to a more narrowly tailored discovery plan. I am a little surprised they didn't just go for that to begin with, I don't totally get the strategy from Lively's legal team here. I know people on here will say "oh it's because Blake is selfish and demanded they ask for everything" but her lawyers are serious people, I don't actually believe they'd file for discovery based on a client's whim -- it would not be that hard to explain even to a demanding or difficult client that you have to go about discovery in a specific way to get what you want.

So I don't totally get it. Michael Gottlieb isn't a dummy and he's had plenty of very demanding clients in the past. This was a calculated choice but I don't fully understand it.

Her lawyers just aren’t that good. It’s been obvious since the get go. Outplayed by Freedman over and over again.

I think anyone who is saying this must not know the legal industry. I do agree they are being outplayed on PR by Freedman (it's his speciality) but if you knew anything about these lawyers, I don't think you'd be so dismissive. Her lead trial lawyer is very well known as a tough litigator who excels in high profile, difficult cases. I would recommend checking out his resume: https://www.willkie.com/professionals/g/gottlieb-michael

He's not a lightweight.

Yes, you’ve tried to hype him from the get go. I am a litigator and I typically work with lawyers who are far more talented. The quality of the work product put out by his firm in this litigation has been very mediocre. Which is why they lose each motion.

lol no.

lol let’s see those wins articulated then. Seems like a question no one can answer - but maybe you can cite coverage showing Baldonis lawyers are freaked and intimated. That must be plain right? So link it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think she lied and has a good case. Nice guys finish last, and all that.

I think she lied and has no case, and that PR wise, legally, and probably in her personal life, it’s going poorly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi can someone explain why she doesn't just limit what she's asking for? By keeping the scope within the context of this situation she can still learn about the different pr players they reached too. I don't get why she's making it so complicated

Her argument would be that due to the anonymous nature of the smear campaign, it's not possible to identify all the parties and phone numbers they communicated with, therefore she wants logs of all calls made during that time period (to somehow ascertain who these parties were, and I'm not sure how one would even do that). The judge ruled that this was overbroad and disproportionate as it would also capture all their personal contacts and doctors, etc (something I have argued in this thread as well).

The judge said she should use other tools to try to ascertain who these parties are (for example, she can serve interrogatories asking them for information, contact lists, and phone numbers about other parties who may have information, and then subpoena phone records of communications between the Wayfarer parties and those parties).

Her argument re the smear campaign is predicated on the delusion that prior to filming with Baldoni, Lively was a popular figure across pop culture commentary sites, and that she moved product. She’s been reviled for years for racial insensitivity at best, and her best-known business foray failed and was broadly mocked

She can’t get what she wants both due to and absent that specific delusion. It is what it is.

Not quite. The argument you are referencing would go to damages, but doesn't really impact her ability to make her underlying case. Her argument is that she was sexually harassed, complained about it, and that Wayfarer retaliated against her for complaining via a PR campaign. None of that is predicated on her being popular or "moving product." That's just a standard harassment/retaliation claim under employment law. And if she can prove it to a fact-finder (jury or judge) then she will win regardless of what her popularity level was prior to the whole thing. She could be widely loathed and still win if she can prove they retaliated against her for her SH claims.

Now, in awarding damages, they'd have to determine what financial losses she incurred as a result of the retaliation. And that's where what you are talking about would come in. If Wayfarer could prove she was widely disliked even before the smear campaign and that their actions did little or nothing to damage her already tarnished reputation, they could greatly reduce the potential damages in the event of a loss.

Agreed. Her reputation is not germane to the SH and retaliation claims. It's relevant to damages.

Wrong.

It’s absolutely germane when she takes as evidence of retaliation social media and her initial complaint cited evidence from SM sites with quotes and nicknames predating her beginning filming of IEWU. She has nothing.

Her retaliation claims rely heavily on text messages between Justin and his PR team explicitly talking about planting stories and seeding social media against her. So she does in fact have something. Some of the SM against her was organic, I'm sure. But she has some very solid evidence that Wayfarer sought to sway public opinion against her and to specifically discredit her reputation in a way that would undermine her credibility if she came forward with SH allegations. She has the texts, she has documents from TAG and Abel outlining their plan. It's not nothing. That's honestly a lot more than most retaliation claims have before heading into discovery. The Jonesworks conflict that led Stephanie Jones to seize materials from Abel has bene a huge boon for Lively's case. I actually don't think she'd ever have brought a lawsuit without it.

+1 I have been saying this from day 1.

And yet there is nothing to indicate implementation of any plan ever! The most controversial language was Nathan and Abel agreeing that they were astonished that they didn’t have to act against Lively because of her own goals, and they agreed it was “sad” but “don’t like be a c-.”

I'm on my phone but look again. There are texts where Abel or Nathan say they are seeing good results on SM "thanks to Jed's team." There may be other texts where they express surprise at the "organic" hate online, but that doesn't negate them saying in other places that their plan was in process and working.

[Anonymous]

It’s not even really a “setback.” The jr associates here are acting like getting your discovery narrowed by the judge is some kind of disaster. The whole point was to freak out the other side with a broad request.

I don't think it's a disaster, but I think their subpoena was pointless and time wasting. I don't think it freaked the other side out at all. At most I can see the strategy was to ask for a very broad subpoena that any defendant would absolutely move to quash so they could get in a few silly jabs in the press about Justin and Wayfarer not wanting to show the "receipts" which is just not a strategy I respect. The whole point was they weren't asking for "the receipts" but a bunch of irrelevant, private information.

And yet there is nothing to indicate implementation of any plan ever! The most controversial language was Nathan and Abel agreeing that they were astonished that they didn’t have to act against Lively because of her own goals, and they agreed it was “sad” but “don’t like be a c-.”

"We are crushing on it reddit thanks to Jed" was a pretty good indicator. Baldoni quizzing them about bots and them saying that's not us is a good indicator that there was a paid astroturfing plan in motion that he didn't want to look obvious. I can't buy that they had this whole plan developed, things happened according to the plan, they discussed how they were crushing it, but then claim it actually all was organic. Perhaps the jury will disagree with me, but I think there's enough there for her claims to survive to trial. I'm not saying Lively is likeable. Indeed she had issues and part of their plan was leveraging her own past, real, issues and interviews to destroy her credibility in case her SH complaints should come to life.

[Anonymous]

I’m not an expert at this, but I think a problem for Lively is that the judge is saying she has to Taylor the discovery requests to only certain phone numbers going in and out from the main number in the subpoena, so as to omit private numbers like doctors and lawyers etc. But I think Lively doesn’t necessarily know who all of the relevant parties participating with Wallace in the “untraceable” smear campaign. So they can’t supply those numbers to ask for the calls to and from Wallace on them. Someone earlier suggested they file interrogatories asking for them. This assumes Wallace will actually provide them, whereas with call logs provided by the phone company you get all the numbers and the owner has no choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, this is a fun little twist.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/blake-lively-hires-cia-alum-crisis-pr-justin-baldoni-legal-battle-1236323621/

Blake has hired a crisis PR firm with CIA ties.

Anyone have any clue how much this is costing them?

I mean Melissa Nathan represented trump in crisis PR during his first impeachment hearing. A "CIA alum" does not sound problematic next to that. I've known people who worked at the CIA in various capacities and they are all normal people. Working for the CIA does not mean you interrogated people at black sites or took out hits on people. It's not like the movies.

I would assume Lively's PR and legal representation is costing about what Baldoni's is. They are all quite rich but the whole case will be a boon for the lawyers and publicists who will work with them through the mess. I have no idea why the cost of Lively's PR would be of more interest (or honestly of any interest) compared to Baldoni's.

I don’t know why every question has to be a gotcha. This was posted because it’s in the news as of today, if Baldoni’s team hired a new PR firm for I’m sure we would’ve talked about that too. But this is what is making the headlines right now it’s about Blake not Baldoni.

I don’t really care what Baldoni is paying - I find it particularly ironic to see what Ryan and Blake are paying since they seem to have started this whole thing out of greed and it’s probably costing them tens of millions.

We don’t have to both sides every nuance of this case and in fact, I’m done both sides-ing any of it. Blake is a liar. That is that. You aren’t going to change my mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not an expert at this, but I think a problem for Lively is that the judge is saying she has to Taylor the discovery requests to only certain phone numbers going in and out from the main number in the subpoena, so as to omit private numbers like doctors and lawyers etc. But I think Lively doesn’t necessarily know who all of the relevant parties participating with Wallace in the “untraceable” smear campaign. So they can’t supply those numbers to ask for the calls to and from Wallace on them. Someone earlier suggested they file interrogatories asking for them. This assumes Wallace will actually provide them, whereas with call logs provided by the phone company you get all the numbers and the owner has no choice.

Responding to my own post, but to be. Lear, I know the judge has permitted the broad subpoenas on Wallace, for now — because Wayfarer didn’t have standing to dispute them. I think Wayfarer has since filed a motion to quash the subpoenas against its own employees named in the subpoenas who are not named parties and not already quashed. I don’t think that includes Wallace, but presumably if he files his own motion, they may be quashed against Wallace also. It would be interesting to read any motion by Wallace, as he will likely need to make certain representations and tell a little bit of his story.

Anyway, as things exist now, any subpoena against Wallace would still stand, but maybe not for long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It’s not even really a “setback.” The jr associates here are acting like getting your discovery narrowed by the judge is some kind of disaster. The whole point was to freak out the other side with a broad request.

I don't think it's a disaster, but I think their subpoena was pointless and time wasting. I don't think it freaked the other side out at all. At most I can see the strategy was to ask for a very broad subpoena that any defendant would absolutely move to quash so they could get in a few silly jabs in the press about Justin and Wayfarer not wanting to show the "receipts" which is just not a strategy I respect. The whole point was they weren't asking for "the receipts" but a bunch of irrelevant, private information.

And yet there is nothing to indicate implementation of any plan ever! The most controversial language was Nathan and Abel agreeing that they were astonished that they didn’t have to act against Lively because of her own goals, and they agreed it was “sad” but “don’t like be a c-.”

"We are crushing on it reddit thanks to Jed" was a pretty good indicator. Baldoni quizzing them about bots and them saying that's not us is a good indicator that there was a paid astroturfing plan in motion that he didn't want to look obvious. I can't buy that they had this whole plan developed, things happened according to the plan, they discussed how they were crushing it, but then claim it actually all was organic. Perhaps the jury will disagree with me, but I think there's enough there for her claims to survive to trial. I'm not saying Lively is likeable. Indeed she had issues and part of their plan was leveraging her own past, real, issues and interviews to destroy her credibility in case her SH complaints should come to life.

Wondering if someone could explain astroturfing and what is legal and illegal? There was just an article that apparently Blake has purchased hundreds of thousands of fake Instagram followers to stop her very obvious drop in followers. I imagine that’s perfectly legal, but it is definitely deceptive to the public.

Is anything Jed is doing legal? Or we think everything is illegal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It’s not even really a “setback.” The jr associates here are acting like getting your discovery narrowed by the judge is some kind of disaster. The whole point was to freak out the other side with a broad request.

I don't think it's a disaster, but I think their subpoena was pointless and time wasting. I don't think it freaked the other side out at all. At most I can see the strategy was to ask for a very broad subpoena that any defendant would absolutely move to quash so they could get in a few silly jabs in the press about Justin and Wayfarer not wanting to show the "receipts" which is just not a strategy I respect. The whole point was they weren't asking for "the receipts" but a bunch of irrelevant, private information.

And yet there is nothing to indicate implementation of any plan ever! The most controversial language was Nathan and Abel agreeing that they were astonished that they didn’t have to act against Lively because of her own goals, and they agreed it was “sad” but “don’t like be a c-.”

"We are crushing on it reddit thanks to Jed" was a pretty good indicator. Baldoni quizzing them about bots and them saying that's not us is a good indicator that there was a paid astroturfing plan in motion that he didn't want to look obvious. I can't buy that they had this whole plan developed, things happened according to the plan, they discussed how they were crushing it, but then claim it actually all was organic. Perhaps the jury will disagree with me, but I think there's enough there for her claims to survive to trial. I'm not saying Lively is likeable. Indeed she had issues and part of their plan was leveraging her own past, real, issues and interviews to destroy her credibility in case her SH complaints should come to life.

Wondering if someone could explain astroturfing and what is legal and illegal? There was just an article that apparently Blake has purchased hundreds of thousands of fake Instagram followers to stop her very obvious drop in followers. I imagine that’s perfectly legal, but it is definitely deceptive to the public.

Is anything Jed is doing legal? Or we think everything is illegal?

Astroturfing by itself is not illegal. The problem in this case is doing it in retaliation for an employee's harassment complaint. That is illegal.

Paid followers are dishonest, but that's not astroturfing by itself. It could be consistent dered deceptive, but you'd need to link that deception to an actionable claim. I don't know of one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi can someone explain why she doesn't just limit what she's asking for? By keeping the scope within the context of this situation she can still learn about the different pr players they reached too. I don't get why she's making it so complicated

Her argument would be that due to the anonymous nature of the smear campaign, it's not possible to identify all the parties and phone numbers they communicated with, therefore she wants logs of all calls made during that time period (to somehow ascertain who these parties were, and I'm not sure how one would even do that). The judge ruled that this was overbroad and disproportionate as it would also capture all their personal contacts and doctors, etc (something I have argued in this thread as well).

The judge said she should use other tools to try to ascertain who these parties are (for example, she can serve interrogatories asking them for information, contact lists, and phone numbers about other parties who may have information, and then subpoena phone records of communications between the Wayfarer parties and those parties).

+1, while this was definitely a loss for Lively's side, the judge communicated a lot of openness to a more narrowly tailored discovery plan. I am a little surprised they didn't just go for that to begin with, I don't totally get the strategy from Lively's legal team here. I know people on here will say "oh it's because Blake is selfish and demanded they ask for everything" but her lawyers are serious people, I don't actually believe they'd file for discovery based on a client's whim -- it would not be that hard to explain even to a demanding or difficult client that you have to go about discovery in a specific way to get what you want.

So I don't totally get it. Michael Gottlieb isn't a dummy and he's had plenty of very demanding clients in the past. This was a calculated choice but I don't fully understand it.

Her lawyers just aren’t that good. It’s been obvious since the get go. Outplayed by Freedman over and over again.

If she is so powerful that she and her husband have Sony in their back pocket, why can't they afford good lawyers?

Literally her lead trial lawyer has represented Sony in litigation. Do you think Sony can't afford to hire good lawyers?

I am judging him on his work product. It’s been pretty bad. Sony was likely another captive client, meaning Wilkie does other work for them and they get a discounted rate for sending over more work.

Honey, no. Gottlieb moved to Wilkie from Boise Schiller. He's a real deal powerhouse lawyer.

Perhaps he is not litigating the case for the peanut gallery on Reddit or in order to impress TMZ, but rather with an eye toward the long game. I know for people unfamiliar with how litigation like this works, that might not make sense. But the take that Gottlieb is just a crap lawyer is ridiculous. I don't know if this case is a winner or not, but saying stuff like that makes you sound ignorant. Because of a single discovery setback. Good lord, sometimes I wonder if this thread is mostly populated with like 13 year olds bored during Algebra class.

So funny, Ivy League educated lawyer here who advanced far beyond junior associate and at firms far more prestigious than Wilkie. His work is mediocre. His results are mediocre. There is no secret plan to win by losing all discovery battles.

By the way, your efforts to promote him by insulting others are laughable unpersuasive. Yet you keep trotting them out for some reason. Something tells me your legal career has also been less than stellar.