Orange County attorney Joseph R. Manning Jr. received a one-year suspension resulting from false billing statements
ORANGE COUNTY — An Orange County personal injury firm continues to be a magnet for Americans With Disability Act claims against small businesses, despite the state Supreme Court’s one-year suspension of the firm’s owner last fall.
Seven clients of Manning Law, which is based in Newport Beach, have filed more than 1,000 ADA lawsuits against businesses in the Southern California area, according to court records obtained by the Los Angeles Times. California allows people with disabilities to sue businesses even if they find minor ADA violations at business establishments or accessibility barriers on business websites.
One law firm specializing in ADA defense said Manning Law has filed thousands of claims against small firms and property owners around the state for technical ADA violations. Such claims often result in quick settlements because businesses lack the resources to defend themselves in such litigation.
Businesses have complained that such lawsuits amount to shakedowns over minor violations, but advocates of ADA lawsuits argue that such penalties are needed to make stores accessible to the disabled.
In an email to the Southern California Record, the California State Bar said that because complaints against attorneys and attorney investigations are confidential, the State Bar could not confirm whether or not any investigations involving false ADA lawsuit statements are under way against current Manning Law attorneys.
But the State Bar did say that as a result of legal proceedings last year, Joseph R. Manning Jr., a former Manning Law owner, was placed on a one-year suspension on Nov. 6. He also received a concurrent suspension that will last two years.
The discipline, which was affirmed by the California Supreme Court, followed a pretrial stipulation in which Manning acknowledged he filed false documentation for attorney fee reimbursements in a series of federal lawsuits.
“... He and his firm filed declarations in support of requests for attorneys’ fees that were misleading in that the time purportedly spent by respondent and his associates, as described in the declarations and billing statements attached to the declarations, was not a recording of actual time worked on the matters,” the State Bar said in its statement.
The Notice of Disciplinary Charges filed by the State Bar last year accused Manning of making false statements about the total hourly fees clocked by the firm’s attorneys in scores of legal matters from 2018 through 2021. The respondent later admitted that he did not track the time attorneys spent on the cases, the State Bar said.
“By making false statements to the court when he knew or was grossly negligent in not knowing that the statement was false, respondent committed an act involving moral turpitude, dishonesty or corruption in willful violation of Business and Professions Code. …” the notice stated.
The State Bar’s notice contained three counts: moral turpitude and dishonesty; seeking to mislead a judge; and failures in managing attorneys. Manning used “standardized” billing entries rather than tracking real attorney work hours, according to the Notice of Disciplinary Charges.
As part of the stipulation, Manning will have to take and pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination and was ordered to pay monetary sanctions of $1,250 as well as the State Bar’s legal costs, according to the state Supreme Court’s order.
