Justin Baldoni served a subpoena – in connection with the Blake Lively lawsuit and ongoing legal battle – to Taylor Swift‘s lawyers at Venable, drawing opposition from the firm that has represented the singer for over a decade.
Just days after Swift’s representative criticized Baldoni for dragging her into the feud, the law firm revealed that his legal team served them with a subpoena on April 29. They sought all communications between the firm and Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and her attorney, Michael Gottlieb.
Swift’s longtime lawyers have requested the court to throw out the subpoena, battling their complicity in the Lively-Baldoni feud. Her spokesperson previously labeled a similar subpoena that targeted her as “tabloid clickbait,” arguing that her involvement in the case was only to generate headlines.
Taylor Swift’s legal team calls Justin Baldoni subpoena a ‘fishing expedition’
Taylor Swift’s attorneys at Venable, the law firm representing her for over a decade, branded the Justin Baldoni subpoena a “fishing expedition.” Billboard detailed the motion the firm filed on Monday to squash the subpoena that the “It Ends With Us” director’s legal team explicitly named Douglas Baldridge, who has worked with the pop sensation since 2013. In addition, it claimed that Venable was irrelevant to the “film at issue or any of the claims or defenses asserted in the underlying lawsuit.”
In the filing, the Washington, D.C.-based firm stated the subpoena only intends “to distract from the facts of the case” and thrust needless “burden and expense on a non-party.” Swift’s lawyers further called Baldoni’s attempts a “fishing expedition.”
They noted that his lawyers should source the documents directly from Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. Moreover, the couple has reportedly supported Venable’s battle against the opposing party and dubbed their latest move an “abuse of the discovery process” in a court filing on Tuesday.
This revelation surfaced days after Taylor Swift’s rep taunted her subpoena in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni legal battle. Baldoni’s lawyer served her with the subpoena last week, prompting her spokesperson to release a statement to “Good Morning America” on Friday.
The person questioned the grounds for the Grammy winner being subpoenaed in the feud, claiming she was “never” involved in the film, with her song, “My Tears Ricochet,” being the only link. “This is a very serious legal matter, not Barnum & Bailey’s Circus,” the rep noted.
Lively’s lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, had previously echoed similar sentiments in his first comments to PEOPLE since the lawsuit. Gottlieb stated, “You can’t just go around subpoenaing people because they’re famous and you think it will generate a bunch of headlines.”
