Sigrid S. McCawley

From Epstein to the Banks

McCawley began representing Epstein survivors in 2014. The early legal work involved Epstein, his estate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and other people tied directly to the abuse. It required protection of survivor privacy, development of testimony over long periods, and pursuit of assets and defendants across overlapping civil and criminal proceedings.

By 2021, the survivor teams were examining businesses that supplied financial channels used by Epstein. McCawley and her colleagues investigated JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank and alleged that banking services crossed into knowing participation in or benefit from a trafficking venture.

The evidence included wire transfers, cash withdrawals, account-opening files, compliance alerts, internal escalations, customer-monitoring decisions, and suspicious-activity reports. Those records were compared with survivor testimony and the banks’ internal knowledge and monitoring duties.

Financial Records as Common Proof

A bank record develops meaning through sequence: who controlled the account, where the money moved, how often a pattern repeated, what the bank knew, and how its employees responded. The plaintiffs’ teams assembled those sequences across years of activity and compared them with the banks’ monitoring systems and internal records.

A transfer could connect Epstein to an associate, a survivor, a property, or a service provider. A compliance alert could show that a system identified unusual activity, while escalation and reporting records showed what review followed. The litigation joined those records to survivor testimony and the chronology of the alleged venture.

That structure allowed recurring bank records and policies to be addressed through common proof while preserving an individual process for eligibility, allocation, and confidential information.

JPMorgan Chase

Judge Jed Rakoff certified a Rule 23 class and identified common questions concerning the existence of a trafficking venture, JPMorgan’s alleged participation and benefit, its knowledge, and its response to law-enforcement activity.

Individual survivors had different histories and damages, while the bank’s conduct could be examined through common account and compliance records. McCawley helped carry the case through discovery, class certification, and a $290 million settlement approved in 2023.

The certified structure permitted class counsel to litigate recurring bank records and policies once while leaving survivor eligibility and allocation to a confidential individual process.

Deutsche Bank and Court-Supervised Claims

The Deutsche Bank case addressed a different period of Epstein’s banking activity and developed a separate internal record. McCawley helped carry that case to a $75 million class settlement approved in 2023.

Together, the JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank funds totaled $365 million. The resolutions required separate class definitions, releases, notice, confidential claim submissions, allocation rules, medical-lien procedures, public-benefit issues, and continuing court supervision.

Claims administrators could evaluate confidential submissions and allocate funds without requiring every survivor to testify publicly. The court-approved processes used confidential questionnaires and releases, multilingual materials, independent eligibility and allocation decisions, and procedures concerning medical liens and public benefits.

The two final approvals connected the financial record to enforceable funds and administration systems designed to deliver individual compensation while protecting sensitive information.

Bank of America

McCawley and the plaintiffs’ team filed the Bank of America action in 2025 on behalf of Epstein survivors whose claims concerned the bank’s services and transaction monitoring after 2008.

The investigation included interviews with more than fifty people, including dozens of survivors, ten depositions, review of hundreds of thousands of pages, and work with nine experts.

Mediation in February and March 2026 produced an agreement for a $72.5 million cash fund. Judge Rakoff granted preliminary approval on April 2, 2026. At that stage, counsel estimated that approximately sixty to seventy-five survivors could submit claims. The court granted final approval in August 2026.

Survivor Representation and Financial Discovery

The bank cases combined commercial discovery with sensitive client work. Survivors could be asked to describe abuse, financial dependence, travel, housing, medical care, immigration concerns, or communications controlled by Epstein’s employees. The legal teams then connected those accounts to financial and compliance records held by defendants.

Confidential claims procedures gave survivors a route to submit sensitive information through protected questionnaires and releases, with independent decisions on eligibility and allocation and procedures addressing public benefits and medical liens.

McCawley has also addressed delayed disclosure, secrecy within powerful organizations, and access to civil remedies in public advocacy concerning trafficking-law enforcement.

Earlier Litigation and Survivor Advocacy

Before the bank cases, McCawley worked on the Halliburton securities litigation, which twice reached the United States Supreme Court before resolving for $100 million, and on the Amway fraud and racketeering class action, which reached a settlement valued at $155 million.

Among those earlier representations, McCawley represented Virginia Giuffre in litigation concerning Ghislaine Maxwell and in the civil action against Prince Andrew. She also represents a group of ballerinas pro bono in sex-trafficking-related claims. Her Epstein-related advocacy was chronicled in the Netflix documentary Filthy Rich.

McCawley helped develop the federal proposal known as “Virginia's Law,” named for Giuffre. Senator Charles Schumer introduced S. 3815 on February 10, 2026; the bill was read twice and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it remained as of August 2026. The bill would create a civil cause of action for certain crimes and eliminate limitations periods for specified civil actions.

Trial and Firm Leadership

McCawley is a managing partner of Boies Schiller Flexner and has more than twenty years of experience in complex litigation and arbitration. She has described survivor representation as carrying the weight of a client’s life and trauma and as requiring the lawyer to validate what happened.

Her work in the Epstein matters has included survivor communication, witness development, financial investigation, class procedure, examination, settlement negotiation, claims design, and implementation.