Women in the Profession Section

To other women thinking about seeking out leadership or coming up in the ranks, Manning offered honest advice: 

“Raise your hand and throw your hat in the ring. Take every leadership opportunity presented to you and make opportunities for yourself. That is critical. Nothing is going to change if we don’t.” 

She spoke recently about her journey to becoming a lawyer and now leader in the New Jersey legal community at a meeting of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Women in the Profession Section. A virtual fireside chat, the program was held in honor of Women’s History Month.  

Manning is co-chair of Bressler’s business and commercial litigation practice group, and spearheads the firm’s appellate practice team. In her two decades at the firm, she has gained extensive experience in complex commercial litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. Today, she is one of the state’s leading appellate lawyers. That required being both interest in appeals matters and being tenacious in wanting to be the one to handle them.  

One important tactic she used: Volunteering. Manning cited her work arguing amicus positions on behalf of the NJSBA as an important opportunity. Most recently she drafted briefs and argued the Association’s position in Miesels v. Fox Rothschild, et. al.which asked whether a plaintiff can maintain a cause of action for conversion and breach of fiduciary duty pertaining to $2.4 million deposited in the defendant law firm’s attorney trust account, under the circumstances presented? 

“Say yes, and power through the fear,” she said.

Manning is no stranger to leadership positions. A trustee of the NJSBA, she has extensive experience in the organized bar. She is president elect of the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association and is a past president of Trial Attorneys of New Jersey, the Morris County Bar Association, and the Morris County Bar Foundation.

Yet, asserting herself as a law firm leader has required finetuning techniques to command a room, which sometimes requires consciously dropping the volume of her voice to force people to listen while at others she’s had to “learn how to use her outside voice.”