(L-R) Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds attend the 2025 Time100 Gala in NYC on April 24, 2025.Getty

Earlier this year, a federal judge called the various bitter and big bucks demanding lawsuits between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over what may have occurred during the making of It Ends With Us and the film’s release essentially “a feud between PR firms.”

Turns out back in early March Judge Lewis J. Liman was just looking at the tip of a potential iceberg. Turns out Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman agrees with the judge, though not in the way Judge Liman meant.

“We are just starting to scratch the surface of a much broader and more insidious scheme,” the ever-quotable attorney said today as new paperwork against Baldoni’s former PR firm Jonesworks and its founder Stephanie Jones hit the court dockets. “To be clear, Jones and Jonesworks are equally implicated in this misconduct.”

On the other side, Jones’ lawyer Kristen Tahler says the latest move by Team Baldoni and the fact that they aren’t amending their $400 million initial complaint right now proves this is nothing more than a shell game. “Reversing course, dropping previously touted claims, presenting zero new evidence, and putting out the world’s longest and most confusing statement – what a desperate ploy by a team who tonight all but admits they’re in trouble,” Tahler told Deadline Thursday. “Behind their empty gusto you’ll find not even an attempt to defend the misdeeds laid bare by the evidence. Quite telling.”

What is telling either way is that days after an under the radar subpoena empowered lawsuit from Lively last summer came to light, a series of new filings and counterclaims late Thursday from Baldoni, publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan and others is throwing a lot more than shade at the Another Simple Favor star. Including Ryan Reynolds, the couple’s own publicist Leslie Sloane and the New York Times, Baldoni and Freedman have taken their offensive to a whole new level against his client’s ex-rep.

Starting with a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint filed by Lively on December 20 with California’s Civil Rights department and a NYT expose the next day on IEWU and an alleged online smear campaign from Baldoni’s side to aastroturf and neuter the actress, the heart of the high-profile dispute for both sides has been seemingly damning text messages and other correspondence from Abel and Nathan. To that, it has long been known that the texts, etc originated from Abel’s confiscated cell phone when she exited Joneswork last summer. It has also long been asserted that Jones handed over the incriminating material because of a subpoena.

Until last week, the origin of that subpoena was unknown.

Now, just over a year out from the trial start date of March 9, 2026, it is apparent the subpoena came from an action last September, after box office hit IEWU debuted, from a company called Vanzan against 10 unnamed Does. But how did they know to go for Stephanie Jones and Abel’s cell phone?

“Plaintiff is informed and believes, and based thereon alleges, that the sham lawsuit was contrived by the Lively Parties and Jones, acting in concert, to facilitate and cover up Jones’ release of the data extracted from Abel’s phone and personal accounts under the guise of legal process, without risking detection by interested parties, such as Abel, who could have intervened to stop the flagrant abuse of process,” declares Freedman for Jone’s ex-right hand lady Abel in a countersuit and amended answer to the former’s own suit of late last year.

Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni in It Ends with Us. Sony

Following the filing in federal court, Freedman said to Deadline: “In light of new evidence being uncovered almost daily, it has become imperative to amend our counterclaims against Stephanie Jones and Jonesworks.”

As Lively and her Deadpool superstar spouse Reynolds walked the red carpet at the 2025 TIME100 gala Thursday at The Jazz at Lincoln Center, Freedman added: “We are not surprised at all that Ms. Jones would instruct her legal team to go on record and mischaracterize the circumstances surrounding the sham ‘subpoena’ and Vanzan lawsuit, so impressively uncovered by the passionate group of online sleuths. A cursory reading of the ‘Van-sham” lawsuit makes clear that the Lively Parties have been caught engaging in their own smear campaign, intentionally circumventing the normal procedures for clearly improper purposes by creating a farcical complaint with an unrelated plaintiff and no named defendants, ensuring that no one would know about or object to their attempt to obtain information they were not entitled to.

“To suggest—as Vanzan (Lively and Reynolds) do in their secret ‘complaint’—that they are unaware of the identities of their own employees and contractual counterparties is a complete joke,” the Liner Freedman Taitelman + Cooley, LLP co-fouder went on to say

“We reiterate once again that there is not and has never been a smear campaign, except for the one being waged by the Lively Parties and Ms. Jones in collaboration with the New York Times. We will continue the fight to expose and hold accountable the wrongdoers and uncover the truth.”

Attorney Bryan Freedman. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

In the truly only new part of the amended complaint, the counterclaims from Freedman and other attorneys for Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, execs and publicists go on to state:

Accordingly, on September 27, 2024, working hand in glove with Jones and Jonesworks, the Lively Parties and their counsel at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP (“Manatt”) initiated a sham legal proceeding in New York state court, Vanzan, Inc. v. Does 1-10, inclusive. The sham lawsuit was nothing more than a transparent ploy to obtain subpoena power. The Plaintiff, Vanzan, Inc. (“Vanzan”), is an inactive corporate entity affiliated with Lively and Reynolds and entirely unrelated to the Film or the Wayfarer Parties. The lawsuit asserts three causes of action: breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and faithless servant against Doe defendants only. The lawsuit does not explain how or why Vanzan was unable to identify the proper defendants, especially in the context of a breach of contract action.

Instead, Vanzan (Lively and Reynolds) and Manatt implausibly claim not to be privy to the identities of its own contractual counterparties or its own “employees, contractors, agents, or representatives[.]” The lawsuit is devoid of specific allegations against anyone, much less Abel, relying exclusively on generalized recitations of boilerplate legal jargon. Notably, Vanzan never requested the assignment of a judge, substituted the Doe defendants for named parties, or served the complaint on any defendant. The only docket entries are the complaint and a notice of dismissal filed on December 19, 2024, the day before Lively filed her CRD Complaint against the Wayfarer Parties.

The same day the lawsuit was filed, September 27, 2024, Jones warned a departing employee not to work for Abel because “her business wouldn’t be around much longer.”

The amended filing for Abel goes on to note that the ex-Joneswork publicist and other members of Baldoni’s inner circle had no idea about the lawsuit or the subpoenas, as they claim was the intent of Team Blake.

As planned by the parties, upon receipt of the sham subpoena, on or about October 1, 2024, Jones and Jonesworks blithely surrendered the entire contents of Abel’s iPhone communications for a second time, creating a veneer of legitimacy and affording Jones and Jonesworks plausible deniability once the New York Times came through for Lively. It is on this pretext that Jones’ and Jonesworks’ counsel later described responding to a “court-ordered subpoena.”

As this new-ish front in the battle between Lively and the WME-dumped Baldoni heats up, Lively, Reynolds, Sloane and the NYT are all trying to get themselves dismissed from the Jane the Virgin actor’s $400 million and climbing defamation and extortion action. No promises, but don’t be surprised if you see the Gray Lady exiting stage left soon-ish.