RealPage, the real estate company behind the rent-setting software YieldStar, is facing a legal firestorm. Off the heels of a major ProPublica expose and scrutiny from three state Attorneys General (DC, AZ, and NC), the company is facing multiple tenant class action lawsuits over its involvement in a massive rent-gouging scheme.
To fight these lawsuits, RealPage has enlisted the help of notorious corporate law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. A 2021 RDP report on Gibson Dunn documented the firm’s revolving-door partner roster and frequent representation of scandal-plagued corporations, including Facebook during the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Amazon in several worker abuse and antitrust cases, and Chevron in its smear campaign against human rights attorney Steven Donzinger.
According to Law360, RealPage’s legal team in the Middle District of Tennessee tenant class action proceedings includes two Gibson Dunn lawyers who are former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials, one of whom previously represented RealPage in a 2017 anti-competitive acquisition.
- Stephen Weissman is a Gibson Dunn Partner and global co-chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. Weissman previously served as Deputy Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition from 2013 to 2015, during which time he “supervised all of the agency’s merger and non-merger investigations and litigations” and served as lead trial counsel in the FTC’s successful challenge of the Sysco-U.S. Foods merger. Since leaving the FTC for BigLaw, Weissman has represented several companies in high-stakes antitrust cases, including semiconductor maker Broadcom in an FTC illegal monopolization case, cancer drugmaker Celege in its $74 billion acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb, and oil company Pioneer Natural Resources’ $59.5 billion acquisition by ExxonMobil.
- Michael J. Perry is a Gibson Dunn Partner and a member of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. Perry previously served as an attorney in the FTC’s Health Care Division from 2010 to 2015, and as Counsel to the Director of the Bureau of Competition from 2015 to 2016. Shortly after leaving government for BigLaw, Perry helped secure clearance from the Trump DOJ for RealPage to acquire pricing software from its biggest competitor for $300 million — doubling the number of apartments RealPage was pricing. Perry has also represented other gigantic corporations in merger and acquisition cases, including Amazon’s 2023 acquisition of One Medical and Merck’s 2020 acquisition of Virbac’s Sentinel business.
The rest of RealPage’s legal team includes other experienced defenders of corporate offenders:
- Jay Srinivasan is a Gibson Dunn Partner and a member of the firm’s Antitrust and Trade Regulation Practice Group. He has worked on behalf of several high-profile corporate clients, including Apple (in app store monopoly litigation with Epic Games), Chevron (in an ongoing gas price-fixing case), Time Warner Cable (in a 2013 sports subscription class action lawsuit), and Intel in several antitrust cases brought by the Obama FTC and New York Attorney General.
- Daniel Swanson is a Gibson Dunn partner and former 25-year co-chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. Swanson’s firm biography proudly touts that he “frequently represents clients in connection with price-fixing allegations, and has handled more than 25 international cartel investigations.” Swanson was also co-lead counsel for Apple in the Epic Games-App Store monopolization lawsuit and lead counsel for MGM in the landmark 2020 repeal of long-standing Paramount consent decrees, which gave big Hollywood studios extraordinary market power over independent producers and exhibitors.
- Stephen C. “Chris” Whittaker is a Gibson Dunn partner and member of the firm’s antitrust, IP, and labor litigation groups. He has defended Chevron in a federal price-fixing class action suit, pharma giant Merck against a class action alleging the firm delayed generic versions of cholesterol drugs from going to market, and Amazon against multiple wage and hour class actions in California.
- Ben Sherwood is a Gibson Dunn associate attorney. His firm biography touts his past work defending pharmaceutical company Amgen and an unnamed medical device manufacturer against monopolization lawsuits filed by competitors.
In addition to Gibson Dunn, RealPage has also retained the services of law firm Neal & Harwell:
- Thomas H. Dundon is a member of the Neal & Harwell law firm. He previously defended ExxonMobil in a billion-dollar lawsuit filed by Jacksonville, Maryland residents over a massive 2006 underground gasoline spill. Dundon also previously defended Al Ganier, an associate of former Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist, in an obstruction of justice case connected to a federal corruption probe.