Texas Lawyer names Managing Partner Neal Manne ‘Attorney of the Year’ in Texas

Susman Godfrey Managing Partner Neal Manne has been honored as the “Attorney of the Year” by Texas Lawyer for 2017.  Manne was selected from among three finalists at an event in Dallas September 5th.

In recognizing Manne as ‘Lawyer of the Year’, the publication noted his successful pro bono work on behalf of a class of thousands of indigent persons arrested for misdemeanors in Harris County, held in jail only because they are poor.  The case, ODonnell v. Harris County, Texas, was the country’s first significant trial challenging the practice of denying meaningful bail to low-risk poor arrestees.  Manne and his team from Susman Godfrey along with Texas Fair Defense Project, and Civil Rights Corps won a sweeping ruling in April from a Houston federal judge, finding that the bail system in Harris County likely violates the U.S. Constitution.    The ruling already has had profound impact in Harris County, because the 5th Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay the district court’s order pending appeal. The decision has helped focus national attention on the issue of jailing poor people arrested for minor offenses, while wealthier people arrested for the same offense are quickly released on bail.

Managing Partner at Susman Godfrey since 2011, Manne represents plaintiffs and defendants in all types of litigation throughout the country.  He is routinely recognized as one of the most successful litigators in America.  Lawdragon recently named him as one of 42 “Legends”, and Best Lawyers in America recently named him the “Lawyer of the Year for Bet-the-Company Litigation” in Houston, as it also had done two years earlier.

“Neal is a great trial lawyer in the Lee Godfrey mold:  funny, debonair, brilliant and loved by juries and judges alike,” says Steve Susman, the firm’s founder and Manne’s co-Managing Partner, “But he deserves this recognition because of the example he sets with his pro bono activities:  he reminds us all that helping others is what being a lawyer is all about.”

Click here to read Texas Lawyer’s full profile on Manne.

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