Albany Attorney and Community Activist Receives Service of Justice Award

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (07/24/2013)(readMedia)-- Even before deciding to become a lawyer, Kathy Manley knew that her calling was to be a voice for people who could not speak out for themselves. A self-described political activist since the 1980s, Manley could be counted on to advocate for unpopular people and causes. Whether at a community school board or neighborhood event, a meeting with a social service agency on behalf of a needy family, or a protest against war, discrimination, poverty, or arbitrary government action, she spoke out – even if it meant going to jail.

Unsurprisingly, Manley took an unconventional route to New York Bar admission, taking a then-available clerkship path dating from an era when law school attendance was even more limited to students from wealthy families than it is today. With a young child to support and community commitments to keep, Manley clerked for three years at the Albany law firm of Kindlon and Shanks, where she remains as an associate, and completed one year at Albany Law School. She passed the bar exam the first time, a considerable accomplishment for a person who apprenticed her way to admission, and was admitted to practice in 2001.

In announcing Manley's selection to receive the 2013 Service of Justice Award from New York State Defenders Association (NYSDA), Executive Director Jonathan Gradess noted her willingness to take on controversial clients and unpopular causes. "She is," he added, "one of those valued members of the private bar who understands the necessity and obligation of devoting a meaningful portion of her practice to pro-bono cases and public matters."

Manley has been taken to task in the press for her dedication to the cause of full legal rights and protections for Muslim Americans in the post-9/11 era. Her unpopular actions included writing a 2005 letter to the editor questioning the harsh treatment received from federal authorities by an innocent Muslim student. Most well-known is her ongoing public support and legal work on behalf of Albany Imam Yassin Aref, convicted of money laundering and related arms dealing charges.

Her important work on other emerging social justice issues has included representing a couple in a same sex marriage case, pressing for health care reform and for assistance for a local child suffering from leukemia, and representing "Occupy Albany" protesters.

Manley has also taken on "the crisis of the rehabilitation and reintegration of sex offenders into society [that] is rapidly taking on major moral, ethical, and constitutional dimensions," Gradess said Monday as the award was presented at the New York State Defenders Association (NYSDA) annual conference in Saratoga Springs. He noted her litigation of a variety of cases challenging residency, classification, and registration requirements for people viewed as 21st century lepers. He also noted her efforts, along with others, to prevent the enactment and implementation of ordinances restricting sex offenders from living in the mainstream of the community. In concluding his remarks Gradess said, "...Kathy Manley's body of work speaks for itself as a testament of how a liberty loving, truly patriotic American lawyer should approach the practice of law in the face of public passions and fears."

Ms. Manley's acceptance remarks included ardent accounts of several of the people she has defended and the causes she has championed over the years. It was obvious to those attending that Kathy Manley will remain a force with which to be reckoned on behalf of the poor and the forgotten among us.

The Service of Justice Award, presented to individuals and organizations that support the Defenders Association and its mission, was first bestowed in 1981, to the North Shore Unitarian Society Veatch Program which had provided grant funding to NYSDA for its Public Defense Backup Center. Since then, recipients have included a wide range of public defense lawyers, private attorneys, and other organizations that have provided direct assistance to NYSDA, engaged in exemplary practice, and achieved outstanding results in the furtherance of equal justice for all.