Lisa Wilkinson can’t hide her glee after scoring huge victory against Channel 10 in legal battle over Bruce Lehrmann case

Lisa Wilkinson was wearing a million-dollar smile after learning Ten would pay legal costs she incurred when Bruce Lehrmann took defamation action against her and the network.

The television journalist was pictured at one of her favourite Sydney cafes on Tuesday, laughing on the phone and looking through her notepad in the wake of her Federal Court win.

The long-running dispute between Ten and Wilkinson ended with the network agreeing to pay $1.15million to cover her costs of defending Lehrmann’s action.

On Monday afternoon, the Federal Court approved that amount after months of disagreement over exactly how much Ten should pay Wilkinson for retaining separate legal representation.

The figure was far below the initial $1.8million Wilkinson said she had been forced to spend to successfully defend the case.

In 2023, Justice Michael Lee oversaw a hotly contested defamation trial brought by Lehrmann over a February 2021 report on The Project where Brittany Higgins claimed he had sexually assaulted her in Parliament House almost two years earlier.

In April, the judge dismissed the case, finding Lehrmann had not been defamed and that, on the balance of probabilities, Ms Higgins’ statements that he raped her in the office of their then-boss Linda Reynolds were substantially true.

With Justice Lee ordering Lehrmann to pay $2million in legal costs to Ten in June, questions still remained about what Wilkinson was owed.

Ten previously told the court it had spent $3.7million defending Lehrmann’s lawsuit.

While an external referee was appointed to determine how much of Wilkinson’s legal bill was reasonable, Ten eventually agreed to the $1.15million figure before his report was hashed out at a contested hearing.

The network has already paid Wilkinson $558,000 and will have to pay the remainder of the $1.15million by March 19.

How much of this will then be payable by a cash-strapped Lehrmann on the verge of bankruptcy has yet to be determined.

Ten and Wilkinson will come back before Justice Lee on March 11 to discuss who pays the expenses thrown away by hiring the costs referee.

Lehrmann has appealed his defamation loss in the Full Federal Court with a hearing yet to be scheduled.

The defamation suit came after a criminal case facing Lehrmann was abandoned in 2022 due to juror misconduct with no findings made against him.

Wilkinson’s decision to engage separate legal counsel from her then-employer during the case caused huge tension between the two parties.

She hired Gillis Delaney Lawyers, which charges $750 per hour, along with well-known defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC.

Ten’s lawyer Matt Collins KC had argued the network not required to pay Wilkinson for costs incurred ‘in an unnecessarily duplicative or wasteful manner’.

‘Ms Wilkinson was not entitled to incur costs … as she pleased on the assumption that Network Ten would ultimately pick up the bill,’ he wrote.

‘She was required to incur costs in a responsible manner, having regard to how those costs might be minimised given the separate but related work being undertaken by Network Ten.’ 

But Wilkinson said the network not covering her legal expenses ‘cruel’ and ‘disingenuous’.

She said she needed her own lawyers in the defamation suit after she lost faith in Ten’s legal team, which she felt had ‘abandoned’ her.

Just over a year ago, Justice Michael Lee ruled that ‘In all circumstances it was reasonable for Ms Wilkinson to retain separate lawyers.’ 

But he also anticipated that there was more wrangling to come.

‘And accordingly, the question becomes where do we go from there,’ he remarked.

It would take 12 months before Wilkinson and Network 10 would reach an agreement. 

It comes after Justice Lee told the Federal Court in December that he doesn’t want the costs battle between Wilkinson and Network Ten ‘dragging out any longer’. 

‘I wanted to deal with this today,’ Justice Lee said.

‘I want to ensure I conclude my involvement with this matter if at all possible.’

‘I really want this advent to bring it to an end, I don’t want 2025 to see my involvement with it unless it is necessary I be involved.

‘I’m not dragging this out any longer.’

Justice Lee later agreed to adjourn the case until February. 

Lehrmann is due to return to court in August for his appeal against Justice Lee’s findings against him.

The costs order against him has been delayed until the appeal concludes.