In Memorium, Robert E. Manley

On March 23, 2006, we lost our founding partner, Robert E. Manley, to a heart attack. Bob was an important part of this firm. He taught us dedication to the law, justice and advocacy on behalf of our clients.

Bob practiced in litigation with particular experience in land use planning and zoning law. He had over forty years of experience in representing a wide variety of interests in this area, including the representation of numerous municipalities. He was a former President of the Ohio Planning Conference, the oldest statewide planning organization in the country, and he served many years on the Board of the American Bar Association Section of Urban, State and Local Government Law. In addition, he had a wealth of experience in education law and was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Cincinnati.

Eulogy for a Renaissance Man

By Peter Bronson/Cincinnati Enquirer Staff Writer
(Reprinted with permission of the Cincinnati Enquirer)

The bells of St. Peter in Chains Cathedral made a mournful gong that echoed off rainy downtown streets and faded away, lost to memory like vanishing smoke from the burial mass incense.

Family and friends in muted gray, dark blue and somber black filed out. Some went back to the office. Some went to a wake. And some went to bury Robert Manley, a man who loved Cincinnati the way other men fall in love with baseball, golf or fly fishing.

But Manley's passion for the city was no escape hobby. It was the background music of his work and his life, and our city is better off for it. Manley was one of the first people I met in Cincinnati. Over occasional lunches, he opened a window onto the city's rich history.

I thought I knew him, but at his funeral Tuesday I was surprised. Law partner Tim Burke described a "Renaissance man" who was so good at so many things, I began to wonder if there must have been multiple Bob Manleys.

There was Education Manley, who litigated Cincinnati's landmark 1974 school desegregation case, and who was an expert on urban schools. He graduated from Xavier in three years, earned a law degree at Harvard, taught for 50 years at the University of Cincinnati and was a national leader on fraternity and sorority law.

Amazon Manley was a proud member of the Explorers Club and spent a month each year hiking in rain forests. Support-Your-Local-Police Manley founded Citizens on Patrol to fight neighborhood crime and led a drive to bring back mounted patrols that were so critical during the riots of 2001. He had his own hot line to report crime downtown.

Lawyer Manley was opposing eminent domain before it was cool. "The Chiquita Building is a testament to Bob, in a way," said lifelong friend John Eilers. The city wanted the property, but Manley represented an Oldsmobile dealership and held out until the owners could develop it their way, without city bungling.

"He had his finger in everything," said Burke. "He was a great photographer." His subject was mostly the city he loved. At the top of the list was St. Patrick Manley, who wrote local Irish histories for the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick dinners.

Friend Dan McKenna remembers, "One year his essay included the opinion that since Irish monks were present in Germany in the 1500s, and since they were excellent brewers and bakers, that it only stood to reason that they would have introduced the German populace to pretzels and beer. And so it was the Irish and certainly not the Germans that originated Oktoberfest." A local German told McKenna, "That's it. Manley has finally lost his mind."

Another Manleyism: "I will defend you to your last dollar."
Manley was a lot like another lost local treasure, Dan Ransohoff, a historian who had an infectious passion for Cincinnati.

Both left big footprints in places where the rest of us hardly touch the ground. They looked at the same Cincinnati we see every day, and saw something bigger and more beautiful, with branches stretching into the sky-blue future and roots sunk deep into the Ohio River's muddy past. Their old-fashioned "civic conscience" seems as rare today as spats and pocket watches. But we could use more of it, and more like Ransohoff and Manley.In a eulogy, the Rev. James Bramlage spoke of "a sense of place, and the importance it plays in the lives of human beings."
Bob Manley found his place – the hometown he loved.

The incense and the echoes of church bells drift away on the wind, but Cincinnati won't soon forget him.