Peter Manson was born in Georgia in 1918 and graduated from the University of Florida with a B.A. in English in 1940. Shortly after graduating, he joined the Army as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery. He attended the University of Virginia School of Law from 1948 to 1951 and was elected to the Order of the Coif. After graduating in 1951, he transferred to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps and served in Maryland, Korea and Japan. Manson returned to Charlottesville in 1955 and spent the next five years at the Judge Advocate General’s School. He retired from the Army in 1960 to join the law faculty at the University of Virginia. Manson taught courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, and agency and partnership.

Manson served as director of the Joint Committee on Continuing Legal Education of the Virginia Bar Association and the Virginia State Bar from 1960-83, organizing numerous institutes for Virginia lawyers during his tenure. He was also a charter member of the National Association of Continuing Legal Education Administrators and was a member of the Advisory Committee of the ALI-ABA Committee on Continuing Professional Education. In addition, Mr. Manson served as the first director of continuing legal education of the Virginia State Bar. In the mid 1970s Manson began to teach Legal Ethics and his interest in professional responsibility led him to become a member of the Virginia State Bar Committee that spent several years drafting the 1983 Revised Virginia Code of Professional Responsibility. He also belonged to committees focused on professional responsibility, including the Committee on Ethics of the Virginia Bar Association, and the Virginia State Bar Committee on Lawyer Discipline. Additionally Manson was secretary-treasurer of the Virginia Bar Association from 1969 to 1974 and was chairman of the Publications Committee. Manson was a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Virginia Law Foundation as well as being editor and co-author of the CLE handbook, Defending Criminal Cases in Virginia (1975). He died in 2009.