January 16, 2026 1:25 pm EST

Blake Lively has hired Sigrid McCawley, the high-profile attorney who worked with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, ahead of her long-awaited trial against Justin Baldoni.

Per People, her primary role will be handling communications with the public and the media on key matters related to the case.

“It is a privilege to get to work with Blake Lively’s world class legal team on a case that at its core is about a woman who was subjected to a hostile work environment and is being attacked for standing up to protect herself and other female co-workers,” McCawley, the managing partner of Boies Schiller Flexner, said in a statement shared Friday.

McCawley will be joining Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, who are currently preparing to face off against Baldoni’s lawyers in the Southern District of New York.

“We are thrilled that Sigrid has joined Blake’s legal team in this important role handling our public-facing communications,” Gottlieb and Hudson told the outlet in response to the news.

“We recruited Sigrid based on her many years of work speaking truth to power, including her courageous representation of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, and have no doubt her experience will serve the team well.”

Among some of her most high-profile cases, McCawley represented Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s abuse survivors, including the late Virginia Giuffre.

She also worked with Leslie Sloane, Lively’s publicist, after Baldoni counterused her. The case was dismissed in June 2025.

After months of rumors that Baldoni and Lively were feuding on the set of “It Ends With Us,” the “Gossip Girl” alum filed a complaint — and subsequently a lawsuit — in December 2024.

She accused the director of alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and lost wages.

Shortly after, Baldoni responded with a $400 million countersuit against Sloane, Lively, and the actress’s husband, Ryan Reynolds. However, the suit was tossed by late 2025.

In the latest development, an upcoming hearing scheduled for Jan. 22 will have the judge hear arguments on Baldoni’s motion for summary judgment, which seeks to have some or all of Lively’s claims dismissed before the case reaches a jury.

Most recently, it was revealed that Lively allegedly called her New York City penthouse “Buckingham Palace.”

“She used to call it Buckingham Palace, as she said, because so many celebrities walked through there,” the “Jane, The Virgin” alum said during his deposition in Los Angeles last October, per a transcript obtained by People.

“I think that was her office in her penthouse apartment, which was the place that Ms. Lively requested all of our meetings be.”

He’s also alleged that Lively was “setting [him] up for a trap” by refusing to use a body double in “It Ends With Us” sex scenes.

The trial, originally set for March, will start in May.

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