Pictures by Jason Nuttle
Sigrid McCawley’s title has turn into synonymous with a few of the most high-profile authorized battles of our time. Her face is a continuing presence on main information retailers—from Netflix documentaries (Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Wealthy) to interviews with 60 Minutes, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. As one of many key figures combating for justice on behalf of Epstein’s victims, she has navigated the complexities of a few of the most difficult and public authorized circumstances in latest historical past.
A Managing Associate at Boies Schiller Flexner, a agency based by famed lawyer David Boies and considered elite amongst litigation companies, McCawley’s talent as a litigator has earned her prestigious accolades, together with Forbes 2025 America’s Finest-In-State Legal professionals and a spot on their Prime 200 listing in 2024. The American Lawyer named her Litigator of the 12 months in 2020, and Nationwide Regulation Journal acknowledged her as a Litigation Trailblazer in 2019. Forbes as soon as described her courtroom work as “ironclad interrogation expertise” and “a authorized efficiency that must be taught.”
However past the headlines and high-stakes trials is a fuller portrait of McCawley—the mom, mentor, and group chief whose work has not solely recovered a whole lot of tens of millions for survivors however continues to form the authorized panorama in lasting methods. That is the aspect that blends courtroom victories with boardroom management, household milestones, and the quiet moments that maintain her grounded.
Once I arrive at her Mediterranean-style Fort Lauderdale residence, she greets me with a heat smile. At 5’10”, she has the posture of somebody who’s spent many years commanding courtrooms, but her method is relaxed. The McCawleys have known as this home their sanctuary for 16 years—shut sufficient to the courthouse, airport, and their respective workplaces on Las Olas to steadiness the calls for of a heavy caseload with a bustling household life.
That life consists of 4 children: Kincaid, 20; twin sons Max and Zac, 16; and Maddy, 11. Between faculty, sports activities, and journey, “free time” is extra of an idea than a actuality. Dan McCawley, a business actual property lawyer, coaches their children’ groups—basketball, soccer, baseball, even Maddy’s soccer. “It was love at first sight,” Dan says of assembly Sigrid at a good friend’s World Collection watch celebration in 1997. “I instructed my mother the following day I’d met the woman I wished to marry.” After two years in Washington, D.C., they returned to Fort Lauderdale—Dan’s hometown—as a result of “it’s the place I knew we’d be higher off elevating a household.”
Sigrid’s work ethic was solid lengthy earlier than she ever stepped right into a courtroom. Born in upstate New York, she moved along with her mom, Jean Pasker, and two older sisters to Naples when she was coming into the sixth grade. Jean raised the ladies on her personal, typically working three jobs to maintain them afloat. “That’s the place I get it from,” McCawley says of her mom’s relentless drive. “She simply didn’t cease—ever.” It’s a lesson she’s carried into her profession: the willingness to maintain exhibiting up, irrespective of how exhausting the struggle.
That very same drive has fueled her rise in a occupation the place the bar for ladies is commonly set larger. “More often than not, girls need to attempt twice as exhausting as their male counterparts—and that’s nonetheless true at the moment,” she says. However she additionally sees indicators of progress for the following era. “The boys I work with now are rather more understanding of girls. You see extra actual partnerships in relationships than you probably did 20 years in the past.”
Even so, the panorama of Large Regulation stays difficult. “Loads of girls don’t find yourself staying in it,” says McCawley. “They could go in-house or take a special path. There are only some of us in administration at huge companies, and I believe it’s due to the limitations you face.” Breaking via meant proving her worth past query. “Bringing in enterprise is what will get you elevated in a agency,” she says. “I needed to discover a option to navigate that and stick with it.”
She’s fast to problem the lawyer stereotype. “A shopper will say, ‘I need a pit bull.’ And I’ll inform them, ‘You truly don’t. You need somebody who’s strategic, who will decide the precise moments to be robust, as a result of in case you’re a pit bull on a regular basis, you lose your impression.’ You may be calm, you may be measured—and nonetheless be formidable. The best way you modify that notion is by successful.”
That strategic mindset might be on full show this September, when McCawley and her accomplice, Kenya Davis go to trial within the Southern District of New York—Drew Dixon’s case towards music government LA Reid—the place they’ll name high-profile witnesses, together with John Legend, to the stand. Within the days previous her three-week trial in federal courtroom—when most legal professionals could be residence making ready for trial—she’ll be in Washington, D.C., standing shoulder to shoulder with survivors at a World With out Exploitation rally, a public response to information that Ghislaine Maxwell may obtain a lowered sentence or perhaps a pardon.
“She walks what she talks,” says Daybreak Schneider, founding father of Schneider Group Media and McCawley’s longtime advisor. “And I believe that is likely one of the causes for her success and why persons are drawn to her and admire her.”
Sigrid’s day after day work entails numerous refined litigation together with shuffling from working to help her power shoppers with business disputes to dealing with multi-million greenback company purchase out disputes. Her caseload is crammed with issues which have drawn nationwide consideration. She is representing a gaggle {of professional} dancers in a sexual abuse case involving a former dance teacher and his spouse—work she describes as ‘being an vital instance of her agency’s dedication to free authorized work for these in want’. “We simply had a listening to final week on abstract judgment,” she says, “and I count on that that case will get set for trial quickly.”
Within the latest Energetic v. Baldoni matter, she defended Blake Energetic’s longtime publicist, Leslie Sloane and her firm Imaginative and prescient PR, in a defamation swimsuit introduced by actor Justin Baldoni and efficiently received her shopper dismissed from the litigation. The general public battle over that case “has taken away from what is admittedly on the core—a girl who contends that she was harmed within the office and is rightfully standing up for herself.” It’s survivor-centered work that defines a lot of her profession. Her long-running illustration of Virginia Giuffre and different girls abused by Epstein stays one in every of her most high-profile—and private—missions. “Within the Epstein area, I’ve a really giant class motion proper now, nonetheless pending within the Southern District of New York, the place now we have sued, on behalf of the survivors, Epstein’s right-hand lawyer and accountant—two of the centerpieces of his operation,” she explains. “As a result of it takes a lawyer to have the ability to create these false firms and doc that info, and it takes an accountant to deal with the cash.”
In 2023, her workforce secured $365 million in settlements from JP Morgan and Deutsche Financial institution, utilizing a novel authorized principle, McCawley describes the settlements as “actually life-changing cash for these girls.” However she’s not completed. She continues to push for the unsealing of 1000’s of pages of courtroom data generally known as the “Epstein recordsdata.” “Individuals should know who was there, why they had been there, once they had been concerned,” she says. “There’s no motive simply because you may have cash that you have to be protected once you’ve completed unhealthy issues.”
She remembers the time after Epstein died, when Decide Richard Berman allowed the survivors to talk overtly in courtroom. “Virginia was there, and most of the different survivors. You bought to see that collective help from each other. All of them got here from totally different walks of life, abused at totally different occasions, and to see that sisterhood of survivorship—it was stunning. It made me really feel like, okay, there’s hope for these girls. We received them some monetary justice, which helps. It’s not excellent, however it might assist alleviate the burden and get them good psychological well being care.”
Virginia’s premature passing this 12 months underscores the emotional toll these circumstances tackle survivors. “From a trauma perspective, if you end up prepared to come back to phrases with that, it might have an effect on you in lots of ways in which you won’t even notice…the scars of that abuse don’t go away. Going through these demons may be actually tough, and it doesn’t occur immediately—it might resurface at totally different set off factors for various individuals,” McCawley says.
She additionally is aware of the system isn’t constructed to accommodate each survivor’s timeline. That’s why she’s combating to abolish or prolong the statute of limitations for grownup survivors beneath the Federal Trafficking Act. “That argument to guard defendants simply isn’t there anymore,” she says. “Within the digital age, proof doesn’t simply disappear. We are able to return years and show circumstances. The legislation simply hasn’t caught up.”
And she or he’s seen firsthand what it takes to show even probably the most closely denied claims. “When Virginia first got here out and mentioned, ‘These items occurred to me…,’ everybody mentioned, ‘You’re mendacity.’ We received actually fortunate as a result of there have been exhausting copy paperwork that helped us. As a toddler, she was being placed on these personal planes, they usually needed to document her title. We had been capable of place her there, get a photograph of her in that location. That’s how we proved it.”
Her caseload is heavy, however so is the demand for her assist. She will get calls on daily basis from individuals hoping she’ll take their case. McCawley takes on as many as she will be able to, however the actuality is that a big portion need to be turned down. “If I can’t take it, I’ll discover them somebody who will”, she says.
Her advocacy extends properly past the courtroom. McCawley sits on the boards of the Broward Neighborhood Basis and Jack and Jill Middle, and he or she beforehand served for years on the board of ChildNet. She mentors younger legal professionals on discovering purpose-driven work and devotes substantial professional bono hours to circumstances which may in any other case by no means be dropped at gentle. “It’s encouraging to see extra giant business companies stepping in and doing professional bono work,” she says. “It’s crucial for entry to justice.”
Dan says it’s her potential to mix authorized technique with human empathy that makes her so efficient. “Solely Sigrid has shoppers who inform her they love her,” he says. “Not numerous legal professionals hear ‘I really like you’ from their shoppers. She cares to a fault.”
It’s a sentiment she carries into each case. For McCawley, justice isn’t solely in regards to the verdict—it’s in regards to the individuals. “I’ve seen the worst of humanity, however I’ve additionally seen the very best,” she says. “The survivors I’ve had the privilege of working with have modified me. They’ve given me hope—to outlive these atrocities and nonetheless transfer ahead, nonetheless struggle, nonetheless reside. That’s what retains me going. It’s solely made me a greater particular person.”
