Ms. Manley’s practice focuses on all facets of commercial litigation, especially trial preparation, involving shareholder and condominium/cooperative disputes, landlord/tenant disputes, and business breakups.  Ms. Manley also has brought to SGR the wealth of experience from her life-long immersion in the art world, both from a historical and commercial perspective.  Through SGR’s Art Practice, Ms. Manley has assisted artists and institutional nonprofits with non-judicial resolution of disputes and civil litigation in the New York State courts.  In addition, she represents creditors in recent big-name retail bankruptcy cases resulting from the COVID-19 crisis.

As the New York associate member of SGR’s Pro Bono Committee, Ms. Manley has assisted in expanding the firm’s outreach and services to low-income clients.  She has focused her own pro-bono practice on assisting low-income artists and art-related groups.  Her rec­­­­­ent pro bono representative matters include assisting a New York nonprofit arts organization with successfully negotiating a license agreement for studio space with an over-landlord after being served with eviction notices during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In addition, she assisted a jewelry maker obtain payment from a well-renowned retailer that recently declared bankruptcy.

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Manley was a Commercial Division Law Clerk to the Honorable Marcy S. Friedman in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in and for New York County. The docket was composed of complex commercial cases with amounts in controversy exceeding $500,000 or for equitable or declaratory relief involving article 78 proceedings, business torts, mergers and acquisitions, restrictive covenants, landlord/tenant, and insurance and construction contracts.

Ms. Manley earned her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 2016.  At Fordham, Ms. Manley was President of the Art Law Society, which hosted a record number of art constituents at various conferences she helped organize.  In addition, she was an art law intern at Christie’s Inc. and the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR).  Ms. Manley was also a Notes and Articles Editor for the Fordham International Law Journal, a position for which she was co-recipient of the annual Outstanding Notes and Articles Editor Award.  In addition, she was the 2015 recipient of the William O’Connor Award for her student note, “The (Inter)National Strategy: An Ivory Trade Ban in the United States and China,” 38 Fordham Int’l L.J. 1511 (2015), which analyzed developments in the import/export laws of antique ivory.

Ms. Manley received her undergraduate degree in Art History and International & Global Studies from Brandeis University in 2011, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.

In her personal time, Ms. Manley is an avid horseback rider/pacer, skier and cook.