Meet Lisa Bloom, power attorney to the stars — and to the woman in the Kevin Hart scandal
At this point, the name Lisa Bloom should be as recognizable to you as Angelina Jolie’s, with good reason — she handles some of the entertainment industry’s most high-profile and delicate legal cases. And she’s well-versed in managing the needs of her celebrity clients.
“Celebrity clients generally have a team around them — personal lawyers, publicists, agents, managers,” Bloom tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “These helpful folks can work with us to get us information and evidence we need. And we work with them to be sure that we are all on the same page. Celebrities’ reputations are very important to them, so we need to always remember that for any legal argument or filing. However, everyone’s reputation is important to them, whether they’re a star or not. Even a nasty Facebook post can ruin someone’s day.”
As the founder and managing partner of the Bloom Firm, Bloom’s most recent case, of course, is that of actress and model Montia Sabbag, who finds herself at the center of the Kevin Hart extortion drama. Wednesday morning saw Sabbag and Bloom take center stage at a press conference, during which Sabbag insisted she wasn’t the culprit behind the recordings. Bloom doubled down on Sabbag’s assertions by pointing out that Sabbag is also victim of a crime.
“It is a crime to secretly put cameras in a private place like a hotel room,” Bloom, 55, said during the press conference. “It is another crime to secretly record people in a private place. It is yet another crime to distribute those images. Montia is the victim of multiple felonies under state and federal laws.
“We invite Mr. Hart to join us in bringing the perpetrator to justice,” she finished. “To the criminal who did this, I say you belong in prison and we are going to find you.”
It’s exactly this approach — forthright, commanding, and supportive of her client — that has won Bloom the trust of some of Hollywood’s beleaguered stars. And that’s not by accident. But Bloom, who appears regularly as a legal expert on CNN, CBS News, and other networks, is also very meticulous about who she takes on.
“We vet everything very carefully,” Bloom says. “We constantly do background checks, talk to witnesses, friends, and family to verify information. We don’t speak out until we have all the facts, and until we’ve carefully reviewed them. In short, my team and I do our homework, check it twice, consider all the arguments that we’ll get on the other side, and then it’s go time.”
But “go time” also includes careful preparation for going public. Says Bloom, “I also have intense, long talks with my clients about speaking out publicly, especially the pain of dealing with trolls. But ultimately I know that one of the healthiest things a woman can do is to stand up for herself and speak her truth. And I am honored to assist her in becoming empowered.”
Bloom, a Yale Law School graduate who earned her bachelor’s degree at UCLA, prides herself on championing the underdog and giving voice to women who may not otherwise have one. It doesn’t hurt that law is in her blood — her mother is famed attorney Gloria Allred. Bloom’s own daughter, Sarah, is also carrying on the family’s professional lineage, having graduated from Fordham Law School in 2015.
While Bloom has represented a wide range of public clients including Blac Chyna in her revenge porn case against Rob Kardashian, Mischa Barton in her revenge porn case, and some of the women accusing Usher of exposing them to herpes, Bloom was also the lawyer who represented the three women who helped Fox News finally show the door to host Bill O’Reilly for repeatedly sexually harassing female co-workers. Bloom also represented some of the accusers who spoke out about harassment by Donald Trump.
Some of her battles have definitely been uphill struggles, such as Janice Dickinson’s complaint against Bill Cosby (soon to go to trial), and handling Kathy Griffin after she posted a picture holding a mask of Trump’s head covered in fake blood. But Bloom doesn’t shy away from a fight. As she puts it, “Our motto at the Bloom Firm: If it was easy, everyone would do it. There’s no challenge to just taking easy cases. Give me an uphill battle on behalf of someone I care about, and I’m all in.”
But that doesn’t mean she takes on every celebrity case that comes her way.
“We turn away 98 percent of the cases that come to us,” she explains. “I only take cases I believe in, on behalf of people I connect with and want to advocate for. If the facts aren’t there, or the potential client is a pain in the neck right away, it’s not going to work, and I pass. Life is too short.”
For now, Bloom is focused on helping Sabbag get justice for the violations she’s suffered and has strong words for whoever taped her dalliance with Hart in a Las Vegas hotel room: “No matter who you are, or what choices you make, you have privacy rights. Montia is a crime victim. The criminal who hid a camera in that room, who recorded her, who disseminated those images, is a felon and should be in prison. And we intend to put him there.”
And she wants to remind the public of something they tend to forget when celebrities are embroiled in public struggles — namely, that they’re human. And they deserve to be treated that way.
Says Bloom, “Celebrities raise kids, work hard, bleed, and cry. Many of them don’t have much money, despite a glamorous public image. Many also donate their time to worthy causes when they can. They’re people just like us. Be kind.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
? Jessica Simpson owns her apparent drunkenness — as only she can
? Jada Pinkett Smith: ‘I am not a Scientologist’
? The week’s best celebrity photos
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