Dive Brief:
- A federal judge on Tuesday gave attorneys more time to mediate a lawsuit filed in June by the former finance chief of Miami-based Real Brokerage that alleges the company discriminated against her based on her gender and pregnancy, firing her for manufactured reasons to “clear the way for her less qualified and unencumbered male successor.”
- Judge Analisa Torres granted a joint request from lawyers for ex-CFO Michelle Ressler’s attorney and her former employer which paves the way for a full-day Oct. 30 private mediation proposed by the parties, according to a Tuesday filing with the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.
- The order comes nearly two months after Torres stayed deadlines in the litigation “pending mediation,” scheduling a joint update to be filed by Oct. 10, according to an Aug. 26 filing. On Oct., 10 the parties effectively asked for more time, suggesting a deadline of Nov. 6 to update the court on the mediation’s outcome, which the judge later granted.
Dive Insight:
Attorneys for Ressler and Real Brokerage did not respond to requests for comment. Ressler is seeking relief that includes back and “front pay for future lost wages and benefits” and a declaration that the acts and practices violate the Family and Medical Leave Act as well as back pay and compensation for future lost wages and benefits.
An amended complaint filed in July describes Ressler as a 40-year-old Black woman and first-time mother of a baby girl in the “historically male-dominated financial services and real estate technology industries” who was fired on April 23, 2025, about three months after she returned from maternity leave.
Michelle Ressler disclosed her pregnancy to her former employer in January 2024, and was fired for cause and “pretextual” reasons in April, the filing states. While Real Brokerage said an internal audit had revealed Ressler had improperly charged eight personal expenses totaling $17,440 to a company bank card, the suit asserts that $15,946 of those charges, which were related to airfare, were an “oversight” that she offered to repay, and that $1,493 in entertainment expenses were business-related.
The suit also asserts that Ressler was retaliated against after raising concerns about financial issues such as “a lack of compliance and financial infrastructure for newly launched financial products, premature product launches without accounting, finance or back-office readiness, and material risk exposures from product initiatives” at the firm to its CEO Tamir Poleg.
“The company used Ms. Ressler’s complaints and concerns over financial, regulatory and compliance-related risks as further grounds for reducing her role and authority and ultimately terminating her employment,” the amended suit states.
In April Real Brokerage named Ravi Jani, who joined the company in 2023 as vice president of investor relations and Financial Planning & Analysis, to replace Ressler, stating she was “terminated based on the Company’s opinion that she engaged in actions that violated Company policies,”according to a press release at the time.
Real Brokerage has risen to become the fifth-largest residential real estate brokerage firm in the country, in part due to costly but generous splits and revenue sharing arrangements it offers its agents, according to The Real Deal.
