New York: Regrets? Alan Dershowitz - perhaps the most famous lawyer in America - has a big one.

Meeting Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and sexual abuser who killed himself in suspicious circumstances in a Manhattan jail last month.

Attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz has denied allegations of sex with an underage girl levelled against him. Credit:Reuters

To be clear: he doesn’t regret acting as a defence attorney for Epstein in 2008 when the billionaire was accused of having sex with underage women. And he doesn’t regret helping secure a plea deal that required Epstein to serve a prison sentence of just 18 months, an outcome that would later be seen as absurdly lenient.

"A defence attorney only has one job: to get the best possible deal for your client," Dershowitz tells The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in an interview in New York. "If we fail to get the best possible deal then we have failed in our responsibility. It is up to the courts and the prosecutors to make sure the sentence is appropriate."