NEW YORK, July 2 -- When the case settled in May, both sides went quiet. The terms were sealed. Neither Blake Lively nor Justin Baldoni's representatives disclosed what the agreement contained or what, if anything, changed hands. What remained unsealed was the bill.

On June 30, Lively's attorneys filed a petition in the Southern District of New York asking Judge Lewis Liman to order Baldoni and his company Wayfarer Studios to pay $8.04 million in legal fees and litigation costs. The number is not damages; those were left off the table in the settlement entirely. It is the cost of the lawyers who kept Lively in the fight for a year and a half, a cost her team argues Baldoni should bear after his $400 million defamation countersuit collaps...