Michaela Wallin

Biography

Michaela Wallin is a Shareholder at Berger Montague who divides her practice between the firm’s Antitrust Department and its Trafficking and Forced Labor Department. She represents workers, consumers, and businesses in high-stakes class and collective actions challenging price-fixing, wage suppression, and monopolization. She also represents survivors of human trafficking, forced labor, and human rights abuses. To date, Michaela has helped secure more than $700 million in recoveries for workers and consumers.

Michaela has played major roles in antitrust class actions at every stage of litigation. She has investigated and developed new cases, drafted complaints and dispositive briefing, negotiated and managed discovery, worked closely with experts, and guided cases through class certification and settlement.

Federal courts have appointed Michaela to lead major antitrust class actions. She serves as Interim Co-Lead Class Counsel in In re Construction Equipment Rental Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 3152 (N.D. Ill.), representing renters who allege that major equipment rental companies used a shared data platform to coordinate and inflate rental prices. She also serves as Interim Co-Lead Counsel in In re Broiler Chicken Grower Antitrust Litigation (No. III), MDL No. 3167 (D. Utah), representing chicken growers who allege that major poultry processors conspired to suppress their pay. In addition, she serves on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in In re RealPage, Inc., Rental Software Antitrust Litigation (No. II), MDL No. 3071 (M.D. Tenn.), representing renters who allege that landlords used RealPage’s pricing software to inflate rents.

Michaela has been at the forefront of litigation challenging algorithmic price-fixing. She was a key architect of the RealPage litigation, one of the first cases to allege that competitors colluded through a shared pricing algorithm. To date, the litigation has achieved $359 million in settlements for renters, and the case is ongoing. She has since continued to develop and bring major cases in this area that challenge the use of shared data platforms and pricing software to coordinate prices, including In re Construction Equipment Rental Antitrust Litigation.

Michaela also has deep experience in wage suppression litigation. In In re Broiler Chicken Grower Antitrust Litigation (E.D. Okla.), she helped secure $169 million in settlements to date for chicken growers, work that earned that case team the American Antitrust Institute’s Award for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Private Law Practice in 2023 and again in 2025. She now co-leads the follow-on Broiler Chicken Grower (No. III) litigation.

Michaela also challenges anticompetitive contracting practices in healthcare markets, where dominant health systems can use restrictive contract terms to block competition and drive up prices for patients and payors.

In her trafficking and forced labor practice, Michaela represents people who were compelled to work through threats of serious harm. These include financial threats such as crushing debt and contractual penalties, threats tied to immigration status, and psychological coercion. Her clients include internationally recruited nurses who allege that staffing agencies trapped them in their jobs, and performers who allege they were forced to work for the dance company Shen Yun.

Michaela also litigates major human rights cases. In Blanco Bonilla v. CSI Aviation, Inc. (D.D.C.), she represents a proposed class of Venezuelan men who were flown to El Salvador’s CECOT prison without notice or a hearing and who allege they were subjected to torture and brutal conditions there. The suit brings claims against the airline contractors that operated the removal flights.

Michaela’s current cases include, among others:

• In re Construction Equipment Rental Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 3152 (N.D. Ill.) (Interim Co-Lead Class Counsel for a class of renters of construction equipment alleging price-fixing)
• In re Broiler Chicken Grower Antitrust Litigation (No. III), MDL No. 3167 (D. Utah) (Interim Co-Lead Counsel for a class of chicken growers in a pay suppression case against major poultry processors)
• In re RealPage, Inc., Rental Software Antitrust Litigation (No. II), MDL No. 3071 (M.D. Tenn.) (Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee, representing a class of renters alleging algorithmic price-fixing)
• Chun-Ko Chang et al. v. Shen Yun Performing Arts, Inc., et al., No. 24-cv-8980 (S.D.N.Y.) (representing a class of performers in a forced labor and human trafficking case against the dance company Shen Yun)
• Nyawara et al. v. Interstaff, Inc., No. 4:25-cv-05992 (S.D. Tex.) (representing foreign nurses in a forced labor and human trafficking case)
• Diaz Navarrete et al. v. Conexus MedStaff LLC, No. 4:25-cv-00635 (S.D. Tex.) (representing a class of foreign nurses in a forced labor and human trafficking case)
• Francisco et al. v. Harren Equity Partners, LLC, No. 3:26-cv-00101 (W.D. Va.) (representing a class of foreign nurses in a forced labor case against a private equity firm)
• Blanco Bonilla et al. v. CSI Aviation, Inc. et al., No. 1:26-cv-02511 (D.D.C.) (representing a proposed class of Venezuelan nationals transported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison in claims against the airline contractors that carried out the removal flights)

Before joining the Firm, Michaela served as a law clerk to the Honorable James L. Cott of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She also completed an Equal Justice Works Fellowship at the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, where she challenged local laws that target domestic violence survivors for eviction and impede tenants’ ability to call the police. Michaela earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She earned her B.A., magna cum laude, from Bowdoin College, where she was Phi Beta Kappa and a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar.appa and a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar.