If Lisa Bloom had advised Peter Mandelson or the then Prince Andrew before their disastrous attempts at reputation-saving television interviews, she would have urged them to first listen to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims—or at least to their lawyers—to grasp something of what these women endured.
“Or even just watch some of the powerful documentaries that have been made, focusing on the victims and telling their stories,” Bloom says, pausing briefly, closing her eyes and shaking her head in silent disbelief. “I would have wanted them to become truly enlightened about it. But you can’t instill compassion in someone who doesn’t have it. It’s hard to implant.”
Bloom, a California-based lawyer who has specialized in representing victims of sexual misconduct for 40 years, is acting for 11 of Epstein’s victims. In December, she launched new proceedings against the FBI on behalf of eight clients, arguing that the agency failed to investigate credible reports of Epstein’s sexual misconduct involving minors dating back to 1996. Had the FBI acted diligently, the complaint states, hundreds more women could have been protected from abuse.
Instead, the lawsuit claims, an FBI official hung up on one of the first women who tried to report Epstein. “Despite being the most elite and prestigious law enforcement agency in the United States and perhaps the world … the FBI never called back or followed up … in any way,” the legal filing notes.
The willingness of powerful men to ignore victims’ voices is a recurring theme in the Epstein scandal. When Mandelson appeared on breakfast television in early January, re-emerging after months of isolation following his dismissal as Britain’s ambassador to Washington, he offered no apology to the victims for maintaining his friendship with Epstein after the financier was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from minors.
Many were astonished that Mandelson had learned so little from Prince Andrew’s widely criticized failure to acknowledge the victims’ experiences and apologize during his 2019 Newsnight interview—an attempt to restore his reputation (he has always denied any wrongdoing). Realizing his mistake, Mandelson issued a written statement a day later, offering a clear apology for having believed Epstein over the women who accused him of abuse.
How does Bloom explain this oversight? “I don’t think they forgot. I think it was never part of the equation for them. I’m sure behind closed doors, they don’t talk about the victims at all,” she says. She is equally critical of the British royal family’s slow response to allegations about Prince Andrew’s involvement with Epstein. The palace reluctantly trimmed his duties and titles for years before decisively cutting ties in October. Bloom concludes that “when people appear not to care about victims, they don’t care about victims.”
In 2021, Bloom secured compensation from the Epstein estate for all 11 of her clients, with settlements ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. When Epstein died in his prison cell in 2019, his estate was estimated at $577 million. In 2024, her firm obtained similar payouts for clients from a separate claim against JPMorgan, Epstein’s bank from 1998 to 2013.
After speaking with Bloom, I’m confident that if I ever needed to sue the FBI for negligence, I would consider hiring her firm. It would be an expensive choice; the firm takes between 33% and 45% of any settlement. Bloom’s ruthless professionalism isn’t for everyone, and at times seems at odds with her portrayal of herself as a feminist warrior. Her surprising decision to advise Harvey Weinstein on ways to…In 2016, as journalists began investigating allegations of sexual assault, she worked to discredit his female accusers—a damaging blot on her record that she has since apologized for.
Despite this, Bloom remains a key figure in the fight for justice for Epstein’s victims and is a sharp observer of the political battles over the release of millions of pages of government files related to his case. When we spoke, only about 1% of the documents were public. This past Friday, 3 million new pages were released.
“I have really been flabbergasted, and it takes a lot to shock me, having worked on these cases for so long,” she says. She points to a 238-page book given to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003, filled with notes and photos from influential friends, as further proof of how his high-profile associates failed to see anything wrong with his behavior.
“The essence of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is one man doing terrible things to girls—we can kind of understand that. But having so many powerful men who were enablers, who all just thought this was a joke—it’s so sad,” she says. “Everyone’s just laughing, it’s so funny how Jeffrey Epstein enjoys young women giving him massages. There are these secrets they all have together—it just makes my stomach turn.”
She calls JPMorgan’s failure to act on red flags about Epstein’s suspicious transactions, which included allowing frequent large cash withdrawals, “disgusting.” (The bank has said it regrets its association with Epstein and would not have continued doing business with him if it had believed he was using the bank to commit crimes.) She is also dismayed by the growing list of prominent men who socialized with him. “The whole thing is so vile.
“The more Epstein documents get released, the more we see how he had so many powerful friends, and that’s ultimately what helped him. That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work. Everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law, but what we have seen here is that if someone is rich and powerful they often get a pass,” she says.
On our Zoom call, Bloom’s face is framed against a neutral background, her blond hair resting on her shoulders. Her face is familiar to close followers of the Epstein case, both from her frequent television appearances and because she looks remarkably like her mother, Gloria Allred, the legendary 84-year-old attorney who has spent a lifetime representing victims of sexual assault. Allred became a leading figure in the #MeToo movement, representing women who accused Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, and Sean “Diddy” Combs, among others. She is currently representing another 27 survivors of Epstein’s abuse.
Bloom, 64, and Allred have built reputations as crusaders for women’s rights, securing large settlements for victims of sexual misconduct. But both have seen their reputations shaken in recent years amid controversy over their professional practices. Last year, a Wall Street Journal investigation suggested Allred pressured some clients to sign confidential settlements. In a statement, Allred’s firm said it disagreed with the allegations.
There is an uncomfortable dissonance between Bloom’s pro-victim rhetoric and the advice she emailed to Weinstein as he tried to silence his accusers, which was later leaked to the New York Times. Bloom reportedly offered to use her extensive experience representing victims to instead discredit Weinstein’s accusers.Einstein’s accusers, particularly the actor Rose McGowan. “I feel equipped to help you against the Roses of the world because I have represented so many of them,” she wrote. “They start out as impressive, bold women, but the more one presses for evidence, the weaknesses and lies are revealed.” She also offered to help get negative articles about Weinstein buried online to clean up his Google search results, and to organize an interview to promote Weinstein’s “evolving” attitudes toward women.
Bloom tells me that this all happened nine years ago, and that she stopped working for Weinstein the moment the first woman went on the record accusing him of sexual assault. I ask if any of her Epstein clients have been concerned by her work with Weinstein, and she says the subject has “never come up.” “Clients want to know: ‘What is your plan for winning my case?’ They really don’t care who else I have represented.” She points out that “lawyers represent distasteful people every day.”
I think Bloom is suggesting that it is naive to expect lawyers to represent only the abused; “accused persons need lawyers too,” she writes on her website. And it is true that David Boies, whose firm represented Virginia Giuffre in her case against Ghislaine Maxwell, also acted for Weinstein for many years, handling a contract hiring an Israeli private detective firm called Black Cube to spy on accusers and journalists. He said later: “I regret having done this… It was not thought through, and that was my mistake.”
If she is irritated at being reminded of this whole episode, she masks it with a polite smile. Throughout the call she is determinedly agreeable, congratulating me frequently on how the interview is going: “It’s a great question!”, “Good question!”, “That’s an important question!” But occasionally we stare through the screen at each other in puzzlement. It is late in the Guardian’s London office when we speak, and as she talks about her lifelong commitment to securing justice for women, the motion-sensitive lighting flicks off. I wave my arms in the air to switch the lights on again.
“Are you giving me a hallelujah?” she asks, surprised.
In her biography on the Bloom firm’s website (punchily headlined My Life, Fighting for Justice), Bloom addresses her work with Weinstein as a “colossal mistake,” noting that the firm switched to acting exclusively for victims as a result of the fallout and urging critics to judge people as she does, “not by their worst mistake but by their lifetime work.” “In my case that is over three decades fighting mostly for underdogs against the powerful,” she writes. It would be easier to shrug at the Weinstein episode if Bloom were less effusive in her own portrayal of herself as a tireless fighter for victims’ rights. In her 3,671-word bio, she details a career spent rejecting multimillion-pound salaries to represent victims of discrimination, harassment, and abuse.
“How do you assess someone’s reputation?” she asks. “To me, it’s: Do clients still want me to fight for them? Do I get glowing five-star reviews from clients after we end their case? Overwhelmingly. Do I get beautiful cards and letters? Yes.”
She takes pride in her success at securing large payouts for her clients. “It can be uncomfortable or even distasteful for people who are not used to it. They think: how do you put a dollar sign on someone for being sexually assaulted? Sometimes people say to me: all you get is money for your clients, and does money really mean anything? Well… yes! The only people who say money doesn’t matter are people who have a lot of it.”
The settlements she has secured for the Epstein victims she represents have helped them rebuild their lives. “One of them was able to hOne woman hired an attorney in a custody case and gained custody of her child; she was also able to move to a safer neighborhood to raise her child. Another went back to school and is earning a master’s degree in a field that matters to her. This is very typical of what women do when they receive money. I strongly believe in taking money from the hands of bad actors and putting it into the hands of women. That money means a great deal—it allows them to go to therapy, change careers, return to school, and support their children. Is that full justice? Of course not, but it is genuinely helpful.
Some advocates are concerned about the practice of negotiating high settlements, from which the law firm takes a significant portion. Weinstein’s former assistant, Zelda Perkins, founded the group Can’t Buy My Silence to campaign against non-disclosure agreements. She took this step after breaking the confidentiality clause in her own settlement with the producers, which had prevented her from speaking about his predatory and abusive behavior for decades. Perkins worries that the business model of firms like Bloom’s and Allred’s incentivizes lawyers to fight for the highest possible payout, often using confidentiality as a bargaining chip.
Perkins warns that if victims cannot speak out to expose others involved in broader abuse cases like Epstein’s, predators will continue with impunity. “These women have been silenced over and over. Then a lawyer comes forward, seemingly to help them, and weaves into their settlement a clause saying you won’t get this large settlement unless you agree not to discuss anything further. Women need to own their voices, own their trauma, and be able to access the help they need,” she says.
Bloom states she would never pressure a client to sign a confidentiality clause if they were unwilling: “That would contradict everything I believe in.” New legislation in New York and California has also restricted the use of NDAs. However, she acknowledges that settlements are the result of tough negotiations.
“We’re fighting against the most powerful defense lawyers in the country, giant companies, and billionaires. They push back and demand certain terms. They don’t simply give in.” Confidentiality clauses are often requested by the accused and are sometimes welcomed by the victims themselves, she notes. While in the UK there is a presumption of anonymity for sexual assault victims, this is not automatic in the US and must be negotiated. Her Epstein clients have all specified that they do not want their full names revealed, and she estimates that over 90% of her clients generally prefer confidentiality. “They don’t want the allegations or the settlement amount made public. They want the matter resolved and behind them, so they are comfortable with an NDA,” she explains.
Bloom says her firm never takes more than 50% of a payout, except in cases with exceptionally high costs, such as payments to expert witnesses; the typical range is between 33% and 45%. “You can go to Walmart or to the boutique on the corner—they might sell the same item, but one will be more expensive. At my firm, you get a team of quality lawyers fighting tirelessly on your case.”
She also dismisses recent criticisms of her mother’s career. “I love my mom. Many litigators burn out, especially female litigators, but I’ve been doing this for 40 years, she’s been doing it for 50, and we haven’t burned out,” she says. “I’m very proud to be her daughter.” Bloom attributes her endurance partly to her 50 years of vegetarianism, which later evolved into veganism.Twenty years ago, she began regular hiking and mountain climbing, which she credits for her enduring good health and energy. Though her video call background gives no hint, she is speaking from her cabin near Lake Tahoe, Nevada—a seven-hour drive from Los Angeles—after already taking a morning hike.
The two women cannot discuss specifics of their clients’ cases, but they often talk about broader issues related to Jeffrey Epstein. They have been collaborating on advocacy campaigns since Bloom was 12, when she urged her mother to help her protest a local toy store’s practice of dividing toys by gender—placing toy vacuum cleaners and kitchens on the girls’ side, and toy money on the boys’ side. “I just thought that was ridiculous and wrong,” she says.
Bloom worked intentionally to raise her children without such stereotypes. Both became lawyers and have worked with her: “I like to joke that we have a pro-nepotism policy at my law firm.” Her daughter is now a lawyer at a tech company, and her son is an environmental lawyer—and a former national pole-dancing champion, which Bloom sees as a happy outcome of a childhood free from gendered expectations.
In a climate where regressive “tradwife” values are rising, tech-bro culture has seeped into politics, toys are increasingly marketed along gender lines, and voters have overlooked Trump’s openly machismo behavior in two elections, Bloom knows her work is far from over.
Her firm is preparing for the next phase of its campaign to secure compensation for those affected. “I know that the FBI is going to fight back with every legal argument they can, and we’re prepared for that fight,” she says. She has firsthand experience with the bureau’s reluctance to pursue Epstein-related matters. When she informed FBI staff that she represented a witness who claimed to have seen Prince Andrew at a London nightclub on the night an alleged assault occurred—which he denies, saying he was at a Pizza Express in Woking—the FBI declined to take the witness’s statement. “They were not interested in talking to her,” Bloom says. “I believe the Justice Department did not want to prosecute a British royal.”
Bloom is outraged by the prolonged legal battles, largely due to delays in releasing files, and concerned about the comparatively softer treatment of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking in 2022 and moved to a minimum-security prison last August. She finds discussions of a possible pardon for Maxwell “stomach-turning.”
Over the weekend, Bloom emailed to say she and her colleagues would start reviewing the newly released files on Monday, though she expressed disappointment that only about half have been made public so far. “I know some survivors have complained that their names were released, violating their privacy rights, which is completely outrageous.”
She hopes that some of Epstein’s most powerful associates will eventually have to account for their involvement. “In my dream world, there would be a congressional investigation into Donald Trump’s role with Epstein, and that he, like any other U.S. citizen, would be called to answer questions.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about Lisa Blooms commentary on the battle for justice for Jeffrey Epsteins victims framed in a natural conversational tone
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 Who is Lisa Bloom and why is she talking about this
Lisa Bloom is a wellknown civil rights attorney who has represented several victims of sexual assault and harassment She is speaking out because she has direct experience advocating for survivors in highprofile cases against powerful individuals
2 What does she mean by enablers
She means people who helped Jeffrey Epstein continue his abuse either directly by facilitating it or indirectly by looking the other way using their influence to protect him or silencing victims through intimidation or legal threats
3 Who are these powerful men shes referring to
While she doesnt always name everyone she is pointing to a network that included associates recruiters wealthy friends and potentially powerful figures in business politics and academia who knew of or suspected his crimes but did nothing to stop him
4 What is the main goal for Epsteins victims now
The main goal is justice and accountability which includes holding any remaining coconspirators and enablers legally responsible securing financial compensation for the survivors and having their stories officially acknowledged and believed
5 Why is this case so complicated
Its complicated because it involves extremely wealthy and connected individuals allegations spanning decades some accused enablers who have since died and a legal process that can be retraumatizing for victims
Advanced Practical Questions
6 Legally whats the difference between an enabler and a coconspirator
A coconspirator is someone who actively participated in planning or carrying out the crimes An enabler is a broader term it can include coconspirators but also those whose actions created an environment where the abuse could continue unchecked Legally proving enabling can sometimes be harder than proving direct conspiracy
7 What are the biggest obstacles to holding enablers accountable
Key obstacles include statutes of limitations the death of key figures like Epstein witness credibility attacks the use of powerful legal teams to delay proceedings and the victims fear of public exposure and
