Justin Baldoni Scores Legal Win Over Blake Lively As Judge Denies Gag Order During Heated Court Hearing

Justin Baldoni has scored a major legal win against his "It Ends With Us" co-star, Blake Lively as a judge denied the actress and her husband, Ryan Reynolds' request for a gag order.

Baldoni and Lively's lawyers had a go at each other during a pre-trial court session on Monday with Judge Lewis Liman threatening to move the trial further away.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have been locked in a bitter legal battle since the actress accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, prompting a $400 million countersuit from the actor.

The judge presiding over the legal battle between Blake Lively and her "It Ends With Us" co-star, Justin Baldoni, has denied her request to place a gag order on Baldoni's attorneys.

Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, had asked the court to issue a protective order to prevent Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, from engaging in "improper conduct," including going on an alleged "harassing and retaliatory media campaign" against them.

In their request, they alleged that Freedman was "violating court rules that stop a lawyer from making statements to the press that are irrelevant to a case and might prejudice the jury."

However, Judge Liman denied the couple's request and instead said that he'll be adopting a rule for lawyers known as Rule 3.6, which bars both parties from making extrajudicial statements that could influence the jury.

"My expectation is the parties will comply with their ethical obligations. I don't expect this case to devolve into satellite litigation over the comments of a lawyer," Liman said, per the Daily Mail. "Both have said a lot in the pleadings that give the public plenty to feast upon."

It was a heated affair in the pre-trial as Freedman and Gotlieb kept taking digs at each other.

Gotlieb criticized Freedman's out-of-court comments, claiming they attacked Lively's "character, integrity, and truthfulness."

However, Freedman told him they "started it" with the New York Times article.

Following Judge Liman's directive to adopt Rule 3.6, Freedman tried to protest, saying, "Not to sound like a four-year-old fighting a four-year-old with 'but they started it,' but once someone says something it becomes fact, there's no way to fight against it."

"You start to lose things without the ability to have the court's adjudication. This was not started by us," Freedman added.

In the court session, Lively's lawyer stated that he would seek a protective order for future filings to protect the couple's celebrity friends.

Although no name was mentioned, Baldoni had previously referenced Taylor Swift in his $400 million counter lawsuit against the "Gossip Girl" star, accusing her of trying to use her celebrity power to hijack his film.

"We do believe there will be provisions in a protective order that will be appropriate in this case given the nature of the allegations and the high profile nature of some of the individuals who will be involved," Gottlieb said.

"There is a significant number of high-profile individuals on both sides," he added. "In particular, addressing the interests and needs of third parties is going to be very important in this case."

Gottlieb noted that he would plan to "seek protections we believe will be very important, particularly in a case where there's been a significant amount of leaking materials," proposing a protective order.

The judge agreed with him and said that even before the other parties were named, "you already got a lot of high-profile people" involved. Baldoni's lawyer also stated that he'd be prepared to agree to the order.

Meanwhile, Baldoni's team pleaded with the judge to move the case forward as he disclosed that his clients were "suffering greatly."

"We would really urge the court to allow discovery to take place and move forward because the harms are being suffered and have been suffered since the New York Times article came out," he told the court.

He disclosed that Baldoni's production company had lost "hundreds of millions of dollars" since the legal war began, and Melissa Nathan, Baldoni's PR, had also suffered the loss of clients.

"When things hit the press, especially The New York Times, people sometimes react before there's a judicial determination. These parties are suffering greatly," he explained. "It's so important from our client's perspective of having a future livelihood to move forward as quickly as possible."

Tensions between the warring parties may seemingly water down as Judge Liman warned that he could move the trial date forward from March next year if they don't behave themselves.

He said, "I'm not going to do that, I'm convinced the parties need the time for discovery."

"But if it turns out that this ends up being litigated in the press in a way that would prejudice the opportunity of a fair trial…one of the tools the court has is to accelerate the date of the trial."

"That's something that is out there. I don't want to do that," Judge Liman warned.