Jennifer H. Rearden, a partner resident in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s New York office, is a member of the firm’s Litigation Department, and co-chair of the firm’s Electronic Discovery and Information Law Practice Group. Ms. Rearden’s practice focuses on class actions and other complex business litigation at the trial level, including securities fraud, accountant malpractice, and hostile M&A, as well as appeals. Ms. Rearden has represented the bidder or the target in several high-profile takeover contests in the past few years, including Maxwell Shoe Company, Inc. in connection with its defense of an unsolicited offer by, and subsequent merger with, Jones Apparel Group; Atlantic Coast Airlines Holdings, Inc. in its successful effort to fend off a hostile takeover attempt by Mesa Air Group; and ArvinMeritor in its attempted takeover of Dana Corporation. Ms. Rearden also represented Madison Square Garden and others in trial-level and appellate litigation against various State and City entities and lobbying efforts challenging and ultimately defeating the City’s sweeping proposal to build a new stadium for the New York Jets on Manhattan’s West Side. In addition, Ms. Rearden represented Edison Properties and its affiliates in litigation against the New York Department of Environmental Conservation that successfully challenged that agency’s denial of Edison’s application to participate in the Brownfield Cleanup Program. Since 2007, she has represented the National Association of Securities Dealers (and now the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) in putative class actions and other litigation relating to the consolidation of its member regulatory functions with those of NYSE Regulation, Inc. Ms. Rearden also currently represents Home Depot in a series of matters in states around the country that have denied Home Depot refunds of sales tax payments on private label credit card transactions where the customers ultimately defaulted. In December 2009, Ms. Rearden served as a panelist on defending securities class actions at the New York City Bar’s Annual Securities Litigation Program. In May 2009, she addressed subprime litigation issues at the American Insurance Association Law and Regulation Committee Meeting. Ms. Rearden also spoke at the LexisNexis “Women in the Legal Profession” Summit in New York, in June 2008. In addition, Ms. Rearden is the author of “Subprime-Related Securities Class Actions and Derivative Suits,” a chapter in the leading treatise on securities litigation, Practicing Law Institute’s Securities Litigation: A Practitioner’s Guide. Ms. Rearden graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1992. She received her Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law in 1996, where she was a member of the Journal of International Law and Politics. Ms. Rearden serves on the Board of Trustees of Inwood House, an innovator in teen development and pregnancy prevention, and on the Board of the Yale Club of New York City. Ms. Rearden is a member of the bars of the States of New York, Connecticut, and of the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the Northern District of Georgia. She also is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
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