____________________________________________________________________________ Cox Enterprises | Karen Manley
Whenever possible, she pushes teams back toward company-wide best practices.“ Consistency makes everything easier, including training, scaling, quality control, and it reduces risk,” she explains.
Education plays a key role, too. Karen regularly reminds employees, especially new ones, about legal holds, data preservation, and attorneyclient privilege.“ I don’ t want litigation to be the first time someone hears about a legal hold or privilege. The more we communicate upfront, the fewer surprises we have later.”
Career breaks, context, and perspective
Karen often describes her career in three chapters: big law, time away to raise her family, and her return to the profession in-house. After graduating from Notre Dame Law School, she practiced litigation at Winston & Strawn in Chicago and Washington, D. C. before stepping away from full-time practice.“ That wasn’ t part of some grand plan. It was what made sense for my family at the time,” she reflects.
After a career break and relocation to Atlanta, Karen had to retake the bar exam, balancing her return to law with caring for her three young sons at home.“ It took a lot of flexibility and creativity,” she remembers. She re-entered the workforce as a contract attorney and gradually moved into new roles at Cox. That non-linear path reshaped how she thinks about work and leadership.“ When you’ ve been in different roles, you understand context better. You realize how every piece fits together.”
Her belief shows up in how Karen leads her teams today. She often tells the story of a paralegal who found a critical document because they understood the broader case.“ Every role, no matter how small it seems, matters to the team’ s success,” Karen highlights. For her, context isn’ t abstract; it’ s what lets people at every level make meaningful contributions.
Karen’ s leadership philosophy reflects how she learned to handle mistakes early in her career. She remembers a senior partner pointing out a
The more we communicate upfront, the fewer surprises we have later
citation error.“ I said,‘ I’ m sorry, I’ ll double-check everything. That shouldn’ t have happened,” she recalls. The partner’ s response stayed with her:“ Thank you for owning it. Let’ s fix it and move on.” The lawyer moved on, and it was never brought up again.
That lesson informs how she leads today.“ Mistakes happen. What matters is taking responsibility and learning from them.” She encourages her teams to speak up, correct issues, and keep moving forward together.
When Karen thinks about her legacy, she hopes people remember her openness to dialogue.“ I tell outside counsel and my teams to challenge me. If they see a better way, I want to hear it.” She values respectful disagreement and creative problem-solving.“ The best ideas usually come from conversation, not from everyone nodding along.”
Across litigation, subpoenas, and e-discovery, Karen has built a legal function aligned with business goals, grounded in ethics, and strengthened by technology.“ At the end of the day, our job is to help the business move forward the right way.” ■ modern-counsel. com 81