Gloria Rachel Allred has devoted her legal career to fighting for women’s equality, handling high-profile cases of sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, and hate crimes. Born Gloria Bloom, Allred earned a master’s degree from NYU and moved to Los Angeles in 1966, where she worked as a high school teacher and developed an interest in civil rights. She earned her JD from Loyola Law School in 1975 and opened a law firm with two of her classmates in 1976, Allred, Maroko & Goldberg. In 1986 she sued the all-male Friars Club for discrimination against women and won. She represented the family of Nicole Brown Simpson during the 1995 OJ Simpson trial, and in 1997 she won Hunter Tylo’s wrongful termination suit against Aaron Spelling, leading to the decision that actresses could not be fired because of pregnancy. In 2002 she represented the family of Gwen Araujo, a murdered transgender teen, and in 2012 she advocated for Jenna Talackova, winner of the Miss Universe Canada Pageant, who was disqualified for being transgender. As of 2017 she is representing more than 28 women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, as well as three women accusing Donald Trump of harassment and sexual misconduct.