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 over 140 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 was appointed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) to serve as a Commissioner on the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission in 2014 and continued in that role until his term ended in 2021. In 2012, Jonathan was elected to the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE). From 2011 to 2017, he served on the SJC’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services. In 2008, Jonathan was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to serve on the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination Advisory Board; he was reappointed by Governor Charlie Baker in 2015. Jonathan served two terms as a member of the Executive Committee of the Worcester County Bar Association (WCBA) and currently serves 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 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 has 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.
