Susan Manning

Susan Manning is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, where she leads all aspects of legal, enterprise risk management, and governance work on behalf of the Planned Parenthood national office. 

An accomplished litigator, Susan had more than 20 years of private practice experience before joining Planned Parenthood. Susan has dedicated thousands of hours to pro bono service throughout her career. Her victories include representing some of the country’s largest employers in amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting marriage equality; winning vital procedural protections for those seeking asylum in a precedent-setting Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case; and leading a case that successfully challenged the military’s ban on transgender service members. In addition, Susan was a leader in Guantanamo Bay litigation that received international attention and which reached the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court multiple times. 

Susan’s civil rights and other pro bono work builds upon her two decades of practice as an intellectual property litigator specializing in patent, trademark, and copyright cases. She has considerable experience at the trial court level, and has argued numerous cases before federal Courts of Appeal.

Susan has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Holyoke College, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.