Multiple former clients of high-profile lawyer Gloria Allred alleged her firm pressured them to agree to settlements in cases of alleged sexual abuse in a notable break from her public persona as a feminist campaigner, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Allred, 83, has frequently pitched herself as a leading litigator for women allegedly mistreated by powerful men, representing clients who have accused the likes of Sean “Diddy” Combs, Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelly, and Harvey Weinstein of sexual improprieties.
However, the Journal reported, Allred and her firm Allred, Maroko & Goldberg have allegedly ignored their clients’ preferences and pushed them to accept confidential settlements. In a lengthy statement to The Daily Beast, Allred described the Journal’s piece as a “hit job.”
“It is not surprising that the WSJ smear is published at this time when a number of other prominent law firms who have spoken out and criticized powerful people are being targeted and retaliated against for their advocacy and the cases they have taken in the past to win justice for their clients,” Allred wrote.
“Further, the WSJ’s omissions of the successful outcomes of my law firm and their failure to highlight the more than ten thousand clients that we have successfully represented demonstrate a total lack of balance and fairness by the WSJ, and raises serious questions about their motives and agenda,” Allred added, claiming the paper only spoke to a “handful of former clients” whereas many others “who were not interviewed are very happy about the results we have obtained for them and with them.”
The Journal—which said it interviewed more than four dozen people in addition to reviewing recordings and documents—said the concerns it was reporting had not been made public because past clients of Allred and her firm alleged they were instructed to keep their conversations secret.
They also claimed they were made to sign agreements barring them from suing their lawyers or publicly raising any issues they had with the firm.
The Journal additionally reported that Allred—known to hold very public press conferences where she comforts women in full view of the media—has allegedly chastised and intimidated clients behind closed doors, including by issuing threats they would be dropped by the firm if they didn’t follow orders.
Some women alleged to the Journal that they were instructed to delete text and video evidence, and some claimed to the newspaper that nondisclosure agreements they were urged to sign were likely to protect alleged predators.
“We have represented approximately 10,000 clients in our almost 50 years of practice, the vast majority of whom have been very happy with their outcome and our legal representation,” Allred told the Journal in a statement. “To criticize me and my law firm based on interviews of a mere handful of those 10,000 clients is misleading and wrong.”
Allred also said her clients aren’t forced to sign confidential settlements and that mediators are frequently made available to make certain clients’ decisions to sign any agreements are voluntary.
Allred and her partners declined to address specific complaints brought to them by the Journal, citing legal and ethical duties to their clients and adding their lack of response was “not an admission that we agree with the allegations made in your questions. To the contrary, we do not.”
Allred, Maroko & Goldberg did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Among the cases the Journal describes is that of Caroline Wallner, who Allred’s firm negotiated a $300,000 settlement and non-disclosure agreement in 2021 following allegations of sexual exploitation she made against the author Neil Gaiman.
When multiple women came forward with their own allegations against Gaiman last year, she alleged Allred’s firm had committed legal malpractice. In January, she was told by a lawyer at the firm, the Journal said, that she couldn’t sue them because their retainer agreement contained clauses that said she could not sue the firm or publicize grievances.
Instead, she would have to take any issues to an arbitration held in private—Allred has blasted forced arbitration and her firm’s website, the Journal noted, said it “deprives survivors an opportunity to be heard and seek justice in a system of checks and balances.”
Allred, the Journal wrote, explained that she requires clients to go through private arbitration to prevent them from violating confidential settlements.
The lawyer from Allred’s firm, the newspaper reported, also told Wallner it had recently obtained “sexually provocative” communications she sent to Gaiman from his counsel, which she alleged was an attempt to “victim shame” her.
“I had this feeling all along that they were never truly on my side, and I thought I was just being paranoid,” she told the Journal.
(Gaiman has denied claims that he participated in any nonconsensual activity, in Wallner’s case and others that have appeared in media reports.)
The Journal said more than a dozen women described similar experiences with Allred’s law firm. Some clients and lawyers familiar with the matter said the conditions of the deals negotiated by Allred, which effectively restrict what victims can say to spouses or therapists, are particularly onerous.
Efrosina Angelova, who alleged sexual abuse by the actor Armie Hammer, alleged to the Journal that Allred pressured her by threatening to resign as her lawyer after she confronted Allred over her participation in a documentary about Hammer’s case. (Hammer denied the allegations and police declined to press charges in 2023 after an investigation).
Citing an email, the Journal said she told the lawyer she didn’t “want any part of my trauma to be lumped in a documentary.”
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I feel she was just using me as a commercial,” Angelova told the newspaper, of her lawyer.
