SM: What’s the greatest shift you’ve seen in women’s rights in the 30 years you’ve been practicing law?
Gloria Allred: We have more rights and more protections against sexual harassment on the job, but more importantly, there are more women who are willing to assert their rights and to vindicate their rights. They’ve had it up to here and they’re not going to take it anymore. We’re filing lawsuits and winning hundreds of millions of dollars for victims—and that’s good not only for our clients, but it [also] really sends a message to employers that there is a cost for allowing sexual harassment in the workplace.

A powerhouse attorney today, Gloria Allred’s path to success was not easy. During her sophomore year of college at the University of Pennsylvania, Allred got married and then became pregnant at only nineteen. After her daughter Lisa was born, her husband who Allred says once swept her off her feet became emotionally abusive. Concerned about the environment in which her daughter was being raised, Allred made the decision to leave her husband, becoming a single mother her senior year of college. “On my graduation day, although I had my diploma in hand, I also had a baby on my hip. I was flat broke, recently divorced, and undecided about how to make my way in life. However, feeling sorry for myself was not a luxury I could afford,” she writes in her book, Fight Back and Win: My Thirty-year Fight Against Injustice-And How You Can Win Your Own Battles.