James McManis

McManis has been a litigator for nearly half a century, but he still has enough fire to take on a city or county and fight for the underdog.

“I also really believe in the underdog half of the case,” said McManis, a partner at McManis and Faulkner. “So many times, the government has this ‘government knows best, don’t challenge us, it’s our way or the highway.’ That’s always rubbed me the wrong way. That’s not a very noble explanation, but it’s pretty close to the truth.”

McManis racked up one of his biggest wins against government earlier this year, when the California Supreme Court unanimously held that the state’s public records law applied to public officials’ emails about public business even if those messages were held on a personal email account or device. City of San Jose v. Superior Court (Smith), 2017 DJDAR 1896.

“Just to put it in simplest terms, I don’t think public officials should get away with that sort of thing,” McManis said. “They forget who they’re working for.”

Now McManis is representing someone whom he sees as an underdog: Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, the target of a recall campaign by activists who believe he is biased against female sexual assault victims — and favors male athletes charged with the assault.

“He’s the victim of this vicious campaign and all he did was follow the law — as a matter of fact, following the recommendation of the probation office, with the probation officer and police officer both being women,” McManis said. “To me, it’s about someone who doesn’t have an advocate, someone to speak for him.”

Persky recently lost an attempt in court to get the recall petitions decertified and the recall election turned over to the secretary of state, but McManis’ lead attorney in the case, Elizabeth Pipkin, vowed to appeal. Persky v. Bushey, 17CV314311 (Santa Clara Super. Ct., filed Aug. 11, 2017).

But McManis has another case against the city of San Jose. This one alleges that for 20 years, the city has been illegally siphoning off money from its municipal water company to use for other city purposes. Plata v. City of San Jose, 2014-1-CV-258879 (Santa Clara Super Ct., filed Jan. 10, 2014). Trial is set to start Sept. 25.

“If you want to find a common theme in the 50 years of practice I’ve been doing this, it’s the rule of law,” McManis said. “And I’m sorry to say, a lot of government agencies don’t seem to care about the rule of law. They do what they think is best, regardless of the rule of law.

“The law is a beautiful thing, but it’s constantly under attack and it needs to be protected.”

— James Getz