Jim Manley
State Policy Director |
Jim Manley is State Policy director at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he leads PLF’s State Policy team in the fight for liberty in state capitals across the nation. He previously served as an attorney manager and litigator at PLF, suing the government in defense of free speech, property rights, and economic opportunity. Freedom and happiness are inseparable—Jim has dedicated his career to protecting and expanding both through strategic litigation and policymaking.
The State Policy team has helped enact more than 60 bills in 28 states. These include laws ensuring fairness in the property tax collection process, requiring legislative oversight of administrative regulations, enhancing protections against squatters, and expanding birth freedom. As a litigator, Jim successfully challenged many unconstitutional laws—including striking down part of the Kentucky Constitution, saving a man from jail for the “crime” of repairing windshields, preventing a foster child from being ripped away from her pre-adoptive parents because of her race, and defending the right of a midwife to use the title she spent a lifetime earning. In his first case after graduating from law school, he sued his alma mater and won at the Colorado Supreme Court, guaranteeing the right of self-defense on college campuses.
Jim joined PLF in 2018 to advance the fight for liberty with the most impactful public interest law firm operating today. Before joining PLF, he litigated at the Goldwater Institute and Mountain States Legal Foundation.
A native of Michigan, he followed his future wife to Arizona State University, where he graduated with a double major in political science and journalism. He earned his JD from the University of Colorado Law School, where he was an associate editor of the Law Review and president of The Federalist Society. Before attending law school, he was a professional ski instructor in Telluride, Colorado.
He lives in Phoenix with his wife and their two children. They have a cat named Martha Washington.
Jim is a member of the bar only in the states of Arizona and Colorado.
