Lisa Bloom

One of Bloom's clients, Wendy Walsh, filed the complaint that led Fox News' parent company, 21st Century Fox, to initiate an investigation that resulted in O'Reilly's dismissal and the end of his eponymous program.

Lisa Read Bloom (née Bray; born September 20, 1961) is an American attorney known for advising Harvey Weinstein amid various sexual abuse allegations, and for representing women whose sexual harassment claims precipitated the firing of Bill O'Reilly from Fox News.

Bloom founded and owns the Bloom Firm, a law firm that has represented clients including Kathy Griffin and Mischa Barton.

She received her J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1986.

After graduating from law school, Bloom began her career in New York and by 1991 worked at her mother's law firm, Allred, Maroko & Goldberg, assisting in unsuccessfully suing the Boy Scouts of America for sex discrimination on behalf of Katrina Yeaw, a girl who wanted to join the organization.

While at her mother’s firm, Bloom also filed a child sexual abuse suit against the Roman Catholic Church and sued the LAPD.

In 2001, Bloom left her mother's firm, having developed a career in cable news punditry, eventually serving as a legal analyst on CBS News, CNN, HLN, and MSNBC, and appearing on The Early Show, The Insider, Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew, The Situation Room, Reliable Sources, The Joy Behar Show, Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, and The Stephanie Miller Show.

Bloom was also the anchor of Lisa Bloom: Open Court (formerly Bloom and Politan: Open Court), a two-hour live legal news program on truTV's In Session, from 2006 to 2009.

Bloom is the only child of civil rights attorney Gloria Allred and Peyton Huddleston Bray Jr.

Bloom was born Lisa Read Bray, the daughter of Gloria Bloom (later Allred) and father Peyton Huddleston Bray Jr. Her mother is Jewish.

Her parents' marriage was short-lived—they had married and divorced while in college.

Peyton Bray, who suffered from bipolar disorder, later killed himself, and Bloom subsequently took her mother's maiden name.

When Bloom was seven, her mother married William C. Allred.

Bloom received a bachelor's degree from UCLA, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was National College Debate Champion.

Bloom returned to practicing law in 2010 when she founded the Bloom Firm, a small, general-practice law firm that handles family, civil and criminal matters.

She is licensed to practice law in both New York and California.

At the Bloom Firm, Bloom has represented several notable clients, including model and actress Janice Dickinson in her defamation case against comedian Bill Cosby, as well as model and actress Mischa Barton in her revenge porn case.

Model Blac Chyna later hired Bloom to obtain a temporary restraining order against socialite Rob Kardashian, with whom Chyna shares a daughter, Dream.

Amid a series of sexual abuse allegations against powerful men in entertainment and media, and following a BuzzFeed report detailing a sexual harassment settlement paid out of Representative John Conyers’ office budget, Bloom represented Marion Brown, who spoke to BuzzFeed off the record and later came forward publicly to allege harassment by Conyers.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Bloom offered to represent four women who alleged sexual misconduct by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Two of these women came forward publicly with their allegations, including Jill Harth and Lisa Boyne, and two who did not, including a woman from Virginia and another woman who claimed Trump had raped her when she was thirteen years old.

On November 2, 2016, Bloom canceled a press conference with the unnamed client, saying the client was scared because of death threats.

According to Bloom, after this press conference, multiple donors contacted her with offers to cover accusers' relocation and security.

Bloom felt an obligation to relay the offers to her clients.

The Virginia woman said that donors had offered her as much as $750,000, but that she declined the offer.

Bloom's advisory role, which she assumed in late 2016, was pilloried for its dissonance with her prior representation of sexual assault victims, with some in the media calling her book adaptation deal with The Weinstein Company, signed during Weinstein's tenure as co-chairman, a conflict of interest.

In 2017 Bloom represented three women accusing then-Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment.

Jehmu Greene, a television commentator who had appeared on Fox News, also approached Bloom with sexual harassment allegations against O'Reilly, although she ultimately declined Bloom's services.

In a 2017 report, The New York Times identified the donors who contacted Bloom as David Brock's American Bridge 21st Century, which offered $200,000, and Susie Tompkins Buell, who offered $500,000.

Bloom received significant media attention after film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual misconduct in October 2017.

While noting that Weinstein "denies many of the accusations as patently false," Bloom acknowledged advising Weinstein on power dynamics and harassment, calling him "an old dinosaur learning new ways."

On October 7, 2017, two days after the initial article on sexual misconduct in The New York Times, Bloom stepped down from her advisory role amid mounting public criticism and friction with The Weinstein Company's board.

According to emails obtained by The New York Times, Bloom had weighed responding to allegations against Weinstein with "photos of several of the accusers in very friendly poses with Harvey after his alleged misconduct."

Bloom denied plotting to undermine the accusers.

The Daily Beast later reported that Bloom had offered journalist Ronan Farrow opposition research on one of Weinstein's accusers, Rose McGowan, during his own reporting on Weinstein.

In Farrow's 2019 book, he further claims that Bloom would report any information gleaned about his investigation back to Weinstein, and that she admitted to being "his people".

A 2019 book by reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey contains a 2016 memo from Bloom, as well as 2017 billing statements for services rendered on Weinstein's behalf.

These documents show how Bloom would proactively assist Weinstein in undermining his accusers.

Shortly after resigning from Weinstein's team, Bloom fell victim to "email prankster" James Linton masquerading as Weinstein.

In reply to the prankster, Bloom wrote that "[t]he new round of far more serious allegations were [sic] not made known to me".