BEL AIR —This week Canyon News spoke with a woman who is a tireless advocate for the rights of women and children. The beautiful and extremely talented Gloria Allred is perhaps the most famous woman attorney in the nation. Her expertise is as a tireless and successful advocate in very high-profile legal battles on behalf of victims whose rights have been violated. Ms. Allred has been instrumental in many landmark precedent-setting court decisions and hundreds of millions of dollars which she has won for her clients. Though Allred and her firm helps people of all economic levels, not just the rich and famous.

Ms. Gloria Allred

From victims like Caylee Anthony, the 2-year-old girl in Florida whose mother has been arrested for allegedly murdering her, to Shanyah Davis, the 5-year-old North Carolina child whose mother has been arrested for allegedly selling her into human trafficking and sexual servitude, you can expect to see Ms. Allred on the nation’s most popular TV shows from “Nancy Grace,” to “Larry King” on CNN fighting for children’s rights and those of women and other minorities.

Some of Ms. Allred’s high-profile cases include a lawsuit for pregnancy discrimination that beautiful actress Hunter Tylo filed against mega-producer Aaron Spelling and his “Melrose Place” series as well as Amber Frey, the former mistress of Scott Peterson who was convicted of murdering his wife Stacy Peterson and their unborn child Connor. Frey was unaware of Peterson’s marriage at the time their affair occurred and she was very helpful to the authorities in gathering evidence against Peterson, which was supervised by Ms. Allred, who never relinquished her legal protection of her client.

As a tireless crusader against discrimination in all areas of our lives, Allred’s legal reach has been wide and long. For the past three decades she has played an integral role in combating injustices and winning new rights especially for women and minorities. The fearless feminist tells Canyon News what motivates her to fight for victims and why she has made women’s issues her specialty. “Because no one has ever given us our rights. We always have to fight to get what rights we have. We started in 1848 at the women’s rights convention and it wasn’t until 1920 through women’s suffrage that we finally received our right to vote. African Americans also had to fight for their rights with boycotts and marches and lobbying politicians, so I understand we have come a long way, but we are not there yet,” said Allred.

Miss Allred is best described as a fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and most importantly a winner. She was voted by her peers as one of the best lawyers in America, and described by Time magazine as, “One of the nation’s most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes.” Gloria Allred has devoted her career to fighting for civil rights across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and social class. When Allred was asked about the recent prominent cases of pedophilia in the country, she was quick to correct me and stated, “Tommy, I do not call it pedophilia. That is a confusing term that offers a falsity of a loving relationship, which it is not. I call it what it is, child molestation. That is a better explanation of what is done to children,” stated Allred, “I believe that we have to start educating our children better in America about their bodies, about their rights and teach them that it’s not right for anyone to touch them when they say no and parents need to be educated to understand that many times the perpetrators are members of the inner circle of the family and they need to be on guard and aware of what is going on in their homes and around them.”

When asked what can be done about the epidemic of cases in our nation that involve the sexual and physical abuse of children, Allred clearly and strongly stated, “There needs to be criminal and civil consequences for any such behavior. I believe in stronger laws for those who abuse children, but also they need to pay for their victim’s pain and suffering. A victim should never bear the costs of the harm. And the costs should be heavy,” said attorney Allred.

Gloria Allred is a founding partner of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg, one of the pre-eminent employment law firms in the country, which has won national prominence through many precedent-setting cases over the course of more than 30 years. With the other attorneys of her firm, Gloria has been involved in some of the most defining cases of our day, including O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson and Robert Blake, as well as one of the earliest sexual abuse suits against the Catholic Church. At the same time, she has also played a role in many groundbreaking legal decisions that have forever changed our lives for the better. However, Gloria Allred says of her best successful venture to date, "[It] was having and raising my beautiful daughter Lisa [Bloom], she is a wonderful young lady and I am proud to take a little credit for her being who she is."