A Boies Schiller Star’s Ski Accident Tests Strength—And Builds It
During her long and arduous recovery, managing partner Sigrid McCawley learned how brave she can be.
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What does it mean to be a “survivor”? How do people make it through adversity? And what do we learn from these experiences?
I’ve thought about these questions a lot since 2020, when a near-death experience with Covid-19 sent me to the hospital for about three weeks—including almost a week on a ventilator. It profoundly affected me—and, among other things, brought me back to writing.
Survivorship isn’t a foreign concept to Sigrid McCawley, managing partner at Boies Schiller Flexner and one of the nation’s leading litigators. In addition to handling complex commercial litigation, McCawley represents survivors of sexual abuse and sex trafficking—most notably, victims of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
And in light of something difficult she went through earlier this year, I asked McCawley: might she be a survivor herself?
She politely rejected the term, insisting that she is in no way comparable to the true survivors she has the privilege of representing. But regardless of the label, there’s no doubt she endured a life-threatening, life-altering experience—and will never be the same, in ways both good and bad.
In February, McCawley and her husband took their four children on an annual family ski trip to Vail. One day, after working in the morning, McCawley hit the slopes with her oldest son. While taking a run on a mountain she had skied “hundreds of times,” her boot came out of her ski, and she fell—hard.
The pain was immediate. And excruciating.
“I have never felt pain like this in my entire life—and I’ve delivered four kids,” McCawley told me. “I thought my leg had come off my body.”
As a trio of ski patrollers towed her down the mountain, at breakneck speed—in a rescue toboggan she feared was “surprisingly flimsy”—McCawley was physically shaking from the pain.
“I’m Catholic, and I was saying the Hail Mary over and over again—in between swearing and thinking I was going to throw up.”
McCawley had broken her femur—in five places—as well as her tailbone (which she didn’t learn about until later). Running from the hip to the knee, the femur is the longest and strongest bone in the body—and one of the most painful to fracture, given the tremendous amount of force required to break it. Because of the complications it can cause, a femoral fracture can even be life-threatening if not addressed immediately.
Upon arriving at Vail Hospital, McCawley was rushed into four hours of emergency surgery. A metal rod and supporting wires were inserted into her right leg—and will remain there the rest of her life.
She wound up staying in the hospital for five days. And while McCawley was most definitely immobilized, her work continued apace.
Three days after the accident, she and her partner David Boies filed Bensky v. Indyke, a lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime lawyer and accountant for allegedly “aiding, abetting, and facilitating” his sex trafficking. McCawley reviewed and edited drafts from her hospital bed—but let her trusted colleagues take the lead, given she was still in great pain (and on “serious painkillers”).
The surgery and hospital stay were only the beginning of a long and laborious recovery. She left the hospital in a wheelchair. Over the months that followed, she transitioned from a wheelchair to a walker to crutches to a cane (in a shiny rose gold). Her progress was steady, but slow—sometimes painfully so, given how eager she was to return to her old routines.
A few weeks ago, she resumed walking. But walking remains painful, and running is off-limits until the fall—which has been tough for McCawley, an avid runner who completed the New York City Marathon in 2021. Her skiing days might also be over, according to her orthopedist (although she’s hoping to prove him wrong).
So 2024 thus far has been uniquely challenging for Sigrid McCawley. She has had to juggle her recovery—involving ongoing pain, difficulty sleeping, numerous doctor visits, physical therapy sessions that leave her exhausted (and often in more pain)—with the demands placed on her as a top trial lawyer, leader of a major law firm, and mother of four.
But in a series of chats we’ve had over the past few months, McCawley showed nothing but good cheer, grace, and gratitude—for her doctors, physical therapists, and Boies Schiller colleagues, among others. I asked her what she has taken away from this experience.
In a comment that definitely resonated with my own Covid ordeal, when I received get-well wishes from around the world, McCawley cited “the loveliness of the human spirit. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so much love—from my kids, spouse, family, friends, BSF colleagues, and the many other people in my life who worried and cared for me.”
For years, McCawley has been a leader and a doer—someone whom clients, colleagues, and family members have depended upon. Since her ski accident, she has had to depend on others. She’s had no choice in this—for example, having to have associates or her son carry her bags—“but the role reversal has been tough, and I still feel guilty.”
And some of her discomfort with vulnerability—which led her to be initially circumspect about her accident and its consequences, with both clients and colleagues—might have a gendered aspect: “As a woman in litigation, I’ve always felt that I have to be strong and to look strong, that I can’t flinch. Maybe this is all in my own head, but I’ve always felt this way.”
McCawley told me, “I’ve never had anything that knocked me out quite like this—and I feel I’ve learned how brave I can be. And I’ve always thought of myself as empathetic, but this experience has taken it to a new level.”
For our final conversation, McCawley and I met up in person in New York City late last month. She came up from Fort Lauderdale for oral argument on motions to dismiss in Bensky, the case she filed from her hospital bed back in February—and her return to the courtroom struck me as a return to form for the hard-charging litigator.
During the lengthy proceedings—which pitted her against veteran litigators from two top firms, Hughes Hubbard & Reed and Patterson Belknap—McCawley deftly fielded tough questions from Judge Arun Subramanian. And while he hasn’t yet issued a ruling, it appeared to me, based on the judge’s comments from the bench, that Bensky isn’t getting dismissed (at least not in its entirety).
After the hearing, McCawley and I adjourned to a nearby café. Wearing a white dress suit, a smart choice given the summer weather, she navigated the uneven Manhattan sidewalks with ease—in heels, while wheeling a stylish Louis Vuitton rollaboard (which I offered to handle for her, but she refused).
As usual, she was in good spirits. She had celebrated her birthday just two days ago, and two weeks ago she had returned from a European vacation with extended family. (She purchased the Louis Vuitton suitcase while in Paris, as a birthday gift to herself.)
Although she had to take it relatively easy during her trip, hanging back at times with some older members of the group, she was pleased she had been able to do a good amount of walking. She was even able to stand for hours—and dance a little—at a Taylor Swift concert in Edinburgh.
Sipping a vanilla latte, McCawley recalled to me how five years ago, in July 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges—and the world became aware of his predations. It was a watershed event for McCawley, who had been representing Epstein survivors since 2014—and whose work contributed to the arrests of Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
Over the years, McCawley and her Boies Schiller colleagues have represented survivors who have obtained many millions in Epstein-related settlements—including $365 million in a class action filed against two major banks that had Epstein as a client. And even though Epstein died five years ago and Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence, the litigation spawned by their misdeeds continues—with Bensky as only the latest example.
But while she did some reflecting on the past when we met up, marveling at how dramatically her life and career have changed over the last five years, McCawley focused on the present and future. She talked about an important new client: the family of John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who died by suicide this past March. She alluded to a recent Zoom deposition with John Legend, a supportive witness for one of her cases. She mentioned the upcoming midyear meeting of the Boies Schiller partnership—where she and her colleagues would have much to discuss.
At the end of 2024, the iconic founder of BSF, David Boies, will step down as chair. McCawley, a 22-year veteran of the 27-year-old firm, ran to succeed him. And although she didn’t secure the role of chair—which went to her co-managing partner Matthew Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor based in New York—she will continue to play a major role in running the firm.
“On the leadership side, I’ve been very active this year,” she said. “We had a great 2023 as a firm, and we went into 2024 very strong.”
One recent highlight: last month, the Supreme Court declined to hear the last outstanding challenge to the $2.7 billion settlement in the Blue Cross Blue Shield antitrust case—a settlement that provides for attorneys’ fees amounting to 25 percent of the settlement. So the $675 million in fees can finally be paid—and although it will be split among several firms, BSF’s share will be in the nine figures, according to David Boies.
McCawley is also looking forward to an event she’s hosting at the firm on July 30. It’s to recognize Disability Pride Month and will feature a fellow Florida lawyer, disability-rights advocate Haley Moss.
As chair of the pro bono committee at Boies Schiller, McCawley is exploring how the firm’s considerable resources—which over the years have aided survivors of sex abuse and trafficking, LGBTQ couples seeking to get married, and undocumented immigrants—can be used to advance the rights of people with disabilities.
“Until now, I’ve never had to deal with any physical disability or limitation,” McCawley said. But the past few months have given her a new sense of perspective, after she has had to endure accessibility challenges at gas stations, hospitals (of all places), and her own house (which she had to radically revamp after coming home).
“Today I have an even more profound respect for people with disabilities than I did before,” she said. “It has been mind-blowing to me to see what they have to deal with every day. And I’m eager to hear from organizations interested in working with us at Boies Schiller to elevate these conversations, push things forward, and have an impact on the law.”
An abridged version of this article originally appeared on Bloomberg Law, part of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc. (800-372-1033), and is reproduced here with permission.
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Mr. Lat, this is off-topic. But for 8-1/2 of the last nine days, I've had no electric power and have had to follow events, including complicated legal developments affecting my practice and my politics, via an overworked smartphone — recharged a few times each day from my car battery during air-conditioning interludes for me and my two dogs. (We're all fine; but tens of thousands of other Houstonians no more worthy than us continue to swelter without power.) During this ordeal, I valued your newsletter's breadth and skill in collecting, curating, and summarizing even more than I usually do. Now that I again have a regular keyboard to type my thanks upon: Thanks!
Great article, but I always find talk of survivors a bit sad as it suggests that we are so worried about appearing weak that we need to avoid pure expressions of sympathy for victims lest they suggest weakness (hence we wrap it in an ascription of strength).
Don't get me wrong, it's the right thing to do and it seems to be an unavoidable part of being a social product of evolution -- most animals go to great lengths to hide any injury. But I really wish we lived in a world where people didn't feel the constant fear of any hint of weakness.