Legal expert reveals if Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni will head to court

Blake Lively’s recent claims of sexual harassment and smear campaign against her It Ends With Us costar could lead to trial.

According to a legal expert Gregory Doll, who isn’t linked to either party, if a “mediation solution” is not reached between Blake and Baldoni, the matter will head to trial.

In her lawsuit, the Gossip Girl alum claimed that Baldoni created a “hostile work environment” on the set of It Ends With Us and then proceeded to launch a smear campaign against her on social media with the help of a PR team.

The actress, 37, also shared a statement with The New York Times, saying, “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.”

According to Doll, the California Civil Rights Department now has 60 days to decide if the case will be investigated. They “try to mediate a solution” and if a solution is not reached, “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.”

“The most likely cases that don’t [settle] are the ones like these where it gets intensely personal between two people,” he continued explaining to 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,’ ” Doll predicted.

He noted that mediation may be likely for this case, as the mom-of-four has already got her side of things out in the public, if that was her aim.

He added: “If [Lively]’s primary goal was just to get this narrative out there and expose what he was doing, she’s already doing that. She may not want to follow up with years of a lawsuit … She may not want to follow up with much of litigation, she’s already getting her narrative out there in the press.”

Doll also predicted that Justin Baldoni will countersue against Blake Livley, saying, “I could see some small exception where they wouldn’t, but based on what I have observed, it’s almost guaranteed that he will file a counterclaim.”