Gloria Rachel Allred ( Bloom; born July 3, 1941) is an American attorney known for taking high-profile and often controversial cases, particularly those involving the protection of women's rights. She has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Early life and education Gloria Rachel Bloom was born in Philadelphia into a Jewish working-class family on July 3, 1941. Her father, Morris, worked as a salesman; her British-born mother, Stella, was a householder. After graduating from the Philadelphia High School for Girls, she attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she met her first husband, Peyton Huddleston Bray Jr. The couple had their only child, Lisa Bloom, on September 20, 1961, and divorced shortly after. Bloom is also an attorney and is best known as a former Court TV anchor. Gloria Bloom moved back in with her parents and continued her education. In 1963, she earned a bachelor's degree in English, graduating with honors. Over strong objections from her professor, she wrote her honors thesis on black writers. She was employed in a number of occupations before she decided to become a teacher, taking a position at Benjamin Franklin High School. She began work on a graduate degree at New York University, where she became interested in the civil rights movement. After earning a master's degree, she became a teacher and, in 1966, moved to Los Angeles, where she resided in Watts. She worked for the Los Angeles Teachers Association and taught at Jordan High School and Fremont High School. In her autobiography she describes how, during a vacation in Acapulco in 1966, she was raped at gunpoint. She discovered she was pregnant and sought an abortion. Abortion was illegal at the time, so Allred had a back-alley abortion. After undergoing the procedure, she began hemorrhaging and became infected, only recovering after being hospitalized. She did not report the rape, she said, because she did not think anyone would believe her. In 1968, she married William Allred. She enrolled in Southwestern University School of Law and later transferred to Loyola University School of Law at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Allred graduated and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1975. Allred divorced her husband in 1987, retaining her married name. Career Legal In a legal career that has spanned four decades, Allred has represented a wide variety of clients in civil rights suits that have