A few years ago, Marisa Woytek, a lance corporal in the Marines, decided to help other women deal with a problem she’d already dealt with several times herself. She was going to get their photographs removed from private Facebook groups like Just the Tip of the Spear. (The name refers both to a ploy to coax a woman into having sex and to a military tactic.) Woytek didn’t consider herself a feminist, but she was sick of military sexism. The Marine Corps is the only branch of the armed services that still segregates basic training by gender; in 2014, nearly eight per cent of female marines reported having been sexually assaulted within the previous year. On Just the Tip of the Spear’s Facebook page, underneath the screenshot of a uniformed marine named Erika Butner, there were typical comments. “Would smash,” one male marine wrote. Another asked, “Who has her nudes?” Woytek messaged Butner and offered to help. She contacted the group’s secretive administrators, who, by then, had become used to her take-down requests. They agreed to pull Butner’s photo.

Woytek and Butner became friends. In the fall of 2016, they learned about a new Facebook group, called Marines United. In this one, men weren’t only reposting pictures of female colleagues but also plundering them—hacking social-media accounts, trading nude images from past and present relationships. The group had nearly thirty thousand members; many of the women in the photographs were identified by name, rank, and posting. Under a photo of a female drill sergeant, an active-duty marine wrote, “10/10 would rape.” In January of this year, Woytek called a Marine Corps tip line to report the group, and Butner e-mailed the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Neither heard back. The group continued to grow.

On March 4th, a veteran of the Marines named Thomas Brennan broke the story on Reveal, the Web site of the Center for Investigative Reporting. Nearly every national news organization picked it up; Woytek spoke to the Washington Post the next day. “Even if I could, I’m never reenlisting,” she told the paper. Her e-mail and social-media accounts were flooded with threats. Her father, a cop in San Bernardino, e-mailed the attorney Gloria Allred. “His favorite saying is ‘Don’t start the fight, finish it,’ ” Woytek told me recently. “He’s a big Gloria fangirl.” Allred called her the next day. Two days after that, Woytek and Butner flew to Los Angeles, and held a press conference in Allred’s office. It was International Women’s Day, and Allred was dressed in red for the occasion.

This was the first step in what Allred calls “creative lawyering.” There was no litigation on the table. Instead, she was aiming to influence the court of public opinion by getting the victim’s perspective in the news. Lately, not a day goes by without Allred’s name being mentioned in the news somewhere, as my Google alerts can attest. (Allred also receives these alerts; in the past few months, she has occasionally forwarded them to me, with the note “Please see below.”) The approach attracts criticism from people who say that Allred is more interested in the spotlight than in justice. It also works.

Less than a week after the press conference with Woytek and Butner, there was a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, in which Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, excoriated the Marines for their apparent inaction. (Marines United was still up and running; the military had known about similar groups since at least 2013.) Allred then held another press conference with Woytek and Butner, and outlined three goals: legislation banning nonconsensual sharing of intimate photographs, a meeting with the House Armed Services Committee, and a meeting with the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. In April, Woytek testified, in uniform, before the Senate, and later that month she met with the commandant. In May, the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Against Technological Exploitation (PRIVATE) Act passed unanimously in the House. The bill awaits a Senate vote. It would make nonconsensual sharing of intimate photographs a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

In June, I visited the law offices of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg, high up in a granite-and-glass building on the corner of Crescent Heights and Wilshire, just outside Miracle Mile. I took a seat in an airy room where Allred holds press conferences—a familiar dark-wood bookcase, lined with bound volumes, occupied one wall. Allred swept in moments later, wearing a bright-pink bouclé suit jacket. Woytek and Butner followed her, in business casual, with tattoos poking out from beneath their sleeves. Butner’s forearm was inked with a line from “Star Wars”: “DIE REBEL SCUM.” It was Woytek’s first day as a civilian, and she was practically vibrating with expectant verve. Allred distributed salads and sandwiches and asked if everyone had a muffin. “I’m a mother,” she said. “I’m always afraid everyone’s going to starve to death. I don’t want that on my watch.”

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We talked about the latest developments in the case. A few dozen men involved with the Facebook groups had been disciplined. A couple of marines had gotten pay reductions. Meanwhile, other Facebook groups had arisen. (In July, a marine pleaded guilty in the first court-martial related to Marines United. Two days later, a story broke about a new shared drive, which included photos of an unconscious naked woman.) “Oh, we’re not done,” Allred said, almost mischievously.

While she got up to make a phone call, I asked Woytek and Butner if their friends had been skeptical of the decision to work with Allred. They’d heard all the criticism, they told me—that she was an ambulance chaser, that she was more interested in money and media attention than in her clients. “People think she’s telling us what to say, or pressuring us, and she’s never!” Woytek said. “She shoves the press out of the way for us—like, ‘No, you can talk to me! ’ And I’m, like, ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ ”

As Allred sat back down, I asked if they felt like different people, pre-Allred and post. Woytek nodded. “I’m empowered,” she said, welling up. “I’m a feminist.”

Allred clasped her hands, electrified. “Yay!” she shouted. “And she wouldn’t have said either thing before!”

“I have tears in my eyes,” Woytek said, sheepishly.

“Stop!” Butner wailed. She had also teared up.

“Really, I’ve grown as a woman, not just as a person,” Woytek said.

“I’ve always been a feminist,” Butner said. “But, if we didn’t have Gloria, I don’t know where this would’ve gone.”

Allred smiled, beatifically, and said, “They have become the women they were meant to be.”

Gloria Allred may be the most famous practicing attorney in the United States. She has attained that renown less through litigation—though she has done plenty of that—than through a blend of high-profile legal advocacy and public relations. The mention of Allred to another trial lawyer often elicits a discreet pause, then a slightly raised eyebrow, followed by something like “Gloria is really, really great at what she does.” What she does, as far as the public can see, is show up in front of TV cameras, five feet two, in her black turtleneck, with her gold jewelry and her brightly colored jacket and her clients by her side, and deliver her message with bulldog aplomb. Her voice has the texture of pavement—dark, rough, reassuring, consistent. She has a dry sense of humor, which, these days, tends to emerge in a bemused tone or a sly look, and in a general willingness to play herself as a character. Once, when I asked her about her beach house in Malibu, she said, “Did you ask me if I live there? I have a physical residence there, but my answer to your question is what Mother Jones once said: My home is wherever my shoes are, and my shoes are wherever there’s a wrong to right.”

After Allred and the marines left to wrap up their meeting privately, a camera crew from the L.G.B.T. magazine The Advocate materialized in the conference room. They had come to film a documentary segment with Allred, and they started setting up their gear.