Paz de la Huerta, an actress known for her work on “Boardwalk Empire,” has accused the movie mogul of raping her on two occasions in 2010 in her TriBeCa apartment. The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has said his office is investigating those accusations.

The accusation presents challenges for investigators. Seven years have passed and the crime was not reported to the police at the time. Ms. de la Huerta did speak to a therapist about the encounters, saying she felt coerced to have sex with Mr. Weinstein because of his power and rank in the industry, according to her lawyer, Aaron Filler.

In Los Angeles, the authorities are delving into similar accusations by an 38-year-old Italian actress who maintains Mr. Weinstein forced his way into her room at a Beverly Hills hotel in February 2013 and raped her in a bathroom.

Ms. Berk declined to comment on that investigation. She was first hired by Mr. Weinstein in October 2016 and brought in Mr. Brafman as her co-counsel in Manhattan earlier this year.

Ms. Berk, who graduated from Harvard Law School, grew up in Chapel Hill, N.C., where her father and mother also practiced law. She has a reputation for avoiding publicity and working behind the scenes to negotiate favorable plea bargains or to stave off criminal charges.

Mr. Brafman has a more modest educational pedigree but a touch of showmanship. The son of Holocaust survivors, he grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, earning his bachelor’s degree at night at Brooklyn College. He earned a law degree from Ohio Northern University’s College of Law before landing a job in Manhattan district attorney’s office in the late 1970s.

As a defense lawyer, he has represented mobsters and drug dealers, as well as celebrities like the artists Jay-Z and Michael Jackson. In court, has a knack for getting inside the heads of witnesses on cross-examination, and he often uses self-deprecating humor to win over jurors, making quips, for example, about his own short stature.

“Ben grew up as a borscht belt comedian, and he has got the quickest wit,” said Paul Shechtman, another criminal defense lawyer. “Jury trials, even in high profile cases, can be dull and humor keeps a jury awake and can keep them on your side.”