Jonathan L. Mannina

Executive Director

As Community Legal Aid’s Executive Director, Jonathan leads CLA and is responsible for the organization’s overall programmatic, personnel, administrative, and financial matters. He began his legal services career in 1998 when he was hired by one of CLA’s predecessor organizations, the Legal Assistance Corp. of Central Mass. (LACCM), as a Staff Attorney working on housing and homelessness issues. He later became LACCM’s Litigation Director, supervising and coordinating LACCM’s systemic litigation and litigating cases in both state and federal court. He became LACCM’s Executive Director in 2006 and oversaw the successful, multi-year consolidation of LACCM with two other legal aid organizations, Western Mass. Legal Services and the Massachusetts Justice Project. Jonathan subsequently became the Executive Director of the resulting company, re-named CLA, which has 200 staff and is one of the largest laws firms in Central and Western Massachusetts. Before he was a legal aid attorney, Jonathan worked at Silver Golub & Teitell, a leading plaintiff-side firm in Connecticut, where he litigated employment discrimination, medical malpractice and complex personal injury cases at the trial and appellate levels. He is licensed to practice in Massachusetts and Connecticut, in the U.S. District Courts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and in the First and Second Circuit Courts of Appeal.

Jonathan is active in the legal community and volunteers his time to many activities. He currently serves as a Hearing Officer for the Board of Bar Overseers. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD); he was initially appointed to the Advisory Board by Governor Deval Patrick in 2008 and then reappointed by Governor Charlie Barker in 2015. He was appointed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) to serve as a Commissioner on the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission from 2014 to 2021 and on the SJC’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services from 2011 to 2017. He was a Trustee of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) from 2012 to 2022. Jonathan served two terms as a member of the Executive Committee of the Worcester County Bar Association (WCBA) and also served one term as the co-chair of the Outreach Subcommittee of the WCBA’s Committee for Anti-Racism and Equality (CARE). He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance (CMHA) for many years and is the past chair of the City of Worcester’s Community Development Advisory Committee. In 2017, Jonathan received the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Community Service Award for his commitment to the community. He coached youth sports for many years, and in 2020 received the Wayne Nugent Memorial Sportsmanship Award for his years of service as a volunteer coach at the St. Peter’s Parish Youth Basketball League in Worcester, MA.