They’ve Got Next: Antitrust Fresh Face Jeanifer Parsigian

Jeanifer Parsigian was setting up a projector in a court room when a court deputy reminded her that an attorney would arrive shortly and take care of the task.

“I am the attorney,” Parsigian, a partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, told the deputy while preparing to argue on behalf of student athletes in NCAA v. Alston, a landmark antitrust case that upended the collegiate athletic association’s entire business model.

Parsigian said she has learned to channel such slights into learning and listening opportunities that have pushed her in her legal career.

“They’ll reveal a lot about themselves if they are underestimating you. I think that is something that is a tool I’ve gotten because of being a woman and also short,” said the San Francisco-based lawyer, who stands at 5' 1".

Her confidence and resilience have dotted many of the key points in her ascent at the firm. For instance, Parsigian’s trial work in NCAA v. Alston drew the attention of Beth Wilkinson, the lead lawyer arguing on behalf of the other side, the NCAA.

Wilkinson “came over to me and said, ‘She’s really good. You should let her do more,’” said Jeffrey Kessler, co-executive chairman of Winston & Strawn, and one of Parsigian’s mentors. “I think she recognized Jeanifer’s talent and wanted to make sure I did—which I do.”

Her path to an antitrust and merger enforcement practice seemed to have been seeded early on, based on her keen interest in economics.

After graduating from the University of Michigan in 2006, Parsigian was torn between pursuing a law degree or a doctorate in economics. “I knew I wanted to be doing antitrust more than I knew I wanted to be a lawyer,” she said.

Parsigian joined Winston’s San Francisco office after graduating from Harvard Law School in 2012. She became a partner eight years later.

“From the very beginning she had a lot of self-confidence, was an independent thinker, and was never afraid to share her thoughts even when disagreeing with someone more senior,” Kessler said.

During her Winston tenure, she has worked on an “eclectic” array of antitrust and other corporate cases. She successfully helped defend pet product provider PetIQ in a lawsuit filed in 2018 by two competitors claiming the deal would create a monopoly. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the complaint in 2020.

Parsigian also represented food companies that sued Keurig Green Mountain over an alleged conspiracy to exclude competing coffee pods. And in another antitrust case, she helped to defend Discover Financial Services against retailers that claimed its transition to a certain card-chip technology violated fair trade practices.

Parsigian was a third-year associate when Kessler invited her to work on the NCAA case, which ultimately landed in the Supreme Court.

The high court’s unanimous decision, issued in June 2021, held that the National Collegiate Athletic Association can no longer set caps on student-athletes’ education-related compensation—like scholarships or school supplies—because they violate antitrust laws.

“What I love most about antitrust law is that every case involves a different industry and you have to learn everything about it and figure out all the economics of it,” Parsigian said.

Her antitrust work on the case and others led to more assignments in sports law.

“I’m a huge sports fan, but it didn’t occur to me that it was an area that I could go [into]. But there’s actually a lot of logical overlap,” she said.

Parsigian was on the Winston team that represented the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in their equal pay lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation.

The case, filed on International Women’s Day in 2019, sought to reconcile the pay gap between male and female soccer players by challenging the players’ collective bargaining agreements. The judge ultimately sided with the U.S. Soccer Federation. The team has appealed.

Parsigian said she was struck by how aware the women’s soccer team was of their ability make an impact and advocate for gender wage parity. She also reflected on her NCAA win and the far-reaching implications for student athletes in the future.

“There’s certainly luck in terms of these types of cases coming along,” Parsigian said, “But I’ve never been afraid to speak up in my work and it’s made a complete difference in my career.”