Law Star Sigrid McCawley’s Royal Litigation Credentials
Ben Thomson, LawFuel contributing editor
If you only know Sigrid McCawley as “Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer,” you’ve missed the plot. The Boies Schiller Flexner co-managing partner is the litigator who made banks, boardrooms and Prince Andrew all do the math on enabling abuse.
A recent profile in The Times noted that Giufree in her memoir referred to the litigator as a “sister-in-arms” whom she called “Superwoman”, because of her dauntless behaviour when facing the opprobrium Giuffre endured.
Giuffre took her own life in April this year.
McCawley didn’t just run the Prince Andrew case to a clean, fast settlement in February 2022; she helped set the template for holding institutions financially liable for looking the other way.
For lawyers, that’s the perhaps the real story; to plead strategically, push discovery where it hurts, and widen the defendant map to the money and settlement. Boies Schiller Flexner LLP+2Wikipedia+2
The Lawyer, not the Headline
McCawley is co-managing partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, based in Fort Lauderdale where she helped set up the BSF office in 2015. Now 53, she has been with the firm for over two decades. Despite toying with idea of becoming a journalist, she found the law, embraced it and succeeded as one of the foremost litigators in the US.
Law.com celebrated the ‘female future’ of Boies Schiller in an article in 2020 that referenced Sigrid McCawley’s key role in the firm.
Her docket reads like a guided tour of heavyweight litigation, from complex class actions to the Epstein victims’ cases.
She graduated from New York; University of Florida BA and JD; served in a clerkship with Judge Jose Gonzalez Jr.; commenced her early practice at Morgan Lewis in DC; then Boies Schiller from 2001, rising to firm leadership following the set up of the South Florida office.
She is married with four children.
The Prince Andrew Case
Filed in SDNY under the Child Victims Act, together with legendary litigator (and LawFuel ‘Law Star’ David Boies), Giuffre v Prince Andrew never reached trial because the leverage was built early with targeted pleadings, credible discovery pressure, and a court unwilling to indulge fantasy defenses.
The result was an out-of-court settlement and a charitable payment, with the case dismissed in March 2022.
It was a seminal moment for McCawley, achieving justice in the face of legal, reputational and personal challenges.
“I did cry, and she cried,” McCawley said of Giuffre in the Times report. “I love my commercial work and it has its own challenges [but here] you have someone’s life, you know, and the value of that life and the trauma they went through and validating that is so heavy.
“I guess if you knew Virginia, you knew … that she went through the stuff that she said she went through … and probably more, so diminished it rather than embellished it.”
For litigators, the lesson isn’t just “royals settle.” It’s that a disciplined record beats PR every day ending in “y.”
The Bigger Play
McCawley’s more important work for the bar may be her role in the bank cases arising from the Epstein fallout.
The settlements with JPMorgan (class action) and related matters sent a ringing message to compliance departments: financial institutions that ignore red flags don’t just face bad headlines; they buy themselves nine-figure liabilities as well. That’s not just victim advocacy; that’s enterprise-risk re-pricing via litigation.
Career Notes from McCawley
Sigrid McCawley’s stellar career involviing not just steering major matters while helping manager the major firm, but juggling P&L and high stakes litigation together – a tough gig for anyone.
Her role as co-managing partner isn’t ornamental, with the firm publicly crediting her with her firmwide management and handling matter matters.
Recognized as ‘Litigator of the Year’ by American Lawyer with plenty of plaudits in the trade press like her interview with Law Dragon and others. She represents a new breed of litigator showing her relentless deposition prep, her surgical discovery work and her pressure on enablers and gatekeepers.
The Andrew Implications
McCawley’s long game isn’t just about one defendant like Prince Andrew’s battle, or Virginia Giuffre. Her ability to handle matters as challenging and emtoional as the title-stripped former Duke to high stakes banking litigation has propelled her to the forefront of top litigators in the US.
As Virginia Giuffre said, this is a Superwoman with a unique perspective on the human toll of abuse, in the bedroom or the boardroom.
