Lawyer Lisa Bloom has built her career on the same sort of high-profile cases for which her mother, Gloria Allred, is famous.
Just in the last few years, she has represented three of the women who accused former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment. She’s currently still representing ex-model Janice Dickinson in a defamation case against Bill Cosby. And she recently took on Kathy Griffin’s case after the comedian published a controversial and hotly contested photo of a blood-soaked severed head meant to resemble President Trump. (Bloom has argued that the comic received disproportionally harsh criticism over her poorly-received photo shoot because of blatant sexism on the right.)
Cosmopolitan recently wrote a profile on Bloom, highlighting both her controversial and high-profile cases, as well as the threats she regularly receives for working on them. Here are some highlights from the profile on the inner-workings of the high-profile attorney:
On putting out calls on Twitter for Uber customers to reach out to her if they have experienced sexual harassment or assault for a lawsuit against the company:
“Uber is a giant, wealthy company. And we will force changes. Sexual assault in Ubers, by Uber drivers, can be prevented and they can spend some of their billions to stop it. As with Fox News, I am not going away until they meet our demands. And I believe we will win. There are already a number of sexual assaults that have been reported, and there is a great deal of sexual harassment that was reported in that workplace. And – good news – they’ve cleaned house. They’ve gotten rid of some 20 people (as part of a company-wide harassment investigation). Standing up can reverse the cycle of silence and shame.”
On the threats she gets for representing high-profile clients at the center of controversial cases:
“I get threats every day. Nasty, ugly, gendered, vile threats that they are going to rape me, or dismember me. We’ve had to increase our security, as I get a lot of death threats from Trump supporters. But it doesn’t phase me. It makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. It makes me more resolute. But for my clients it’s a different story. I signed up to do this kind of work. But they didn’t choose it. Social media hate deters a lot of people from doing what they need to do because they are so scared of it. I always say, ‘Who cares about some Twitter troll?’ But people do care. They care a lot.”
On whether or not there’s any case (like Griffin’s) that’s too controversial to touch:
“Not if it’s the right thing to do. Doing nothing is riskier. Doing nothing allows people to get away with racism and sexual assault and discrimination and abuse.”
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