Charles Mancuso strives to be more than just an attorney. Although he has been practicing law since 1987, fighting for the rights of the injured at his practice the Law Office of Charles A. Mancuso, the Acreage resident believes there is more to his purpose in life.
As an avid volunteer, Mancuso holds positions as a board member of the Acreage Athletic League, assistant scoutmaster of a local Boy Scout troop and sponsor of local school sports teams such as the girls flag football team at Seminole Ridge High School. “We try to give back as much as we can and support the community as much as it supports us,” he said.
Mancuso strongly believes in the positive influence sports has on many students. As a former high school football player, he understands how sports build good work ethics.
Mancuso is the distributor of the annual Hawks Program Award, which is a part of a series of scholarship awards given to local students who excel in sports and academics. This year’s recipient, Alexander Santacroce, is a Seminole Ridge senior who plays tight end on the football team.
Mancuso remembers growing up in a small town in northern Florida, where he first learned he wanted to become a lawyer. “When I was a little kid,” he recalled, “one time I went downtown with my dad to his office, and I saw these guys walking around with briefcases, and I saw guys walking outside in the cold on construction sites, and I said, ‘Dad, I want to know what the guys with the briefcases do,’ and my dad said, ‘Well, they are probably lawyers.’ That experience steered my interest toward law.”
This fondness for his romanticized view of lawyers grew into a passion as an adult. “Once I started going to school and really learning about the practice of law, it was something that really interested me because I could actually help people,” Mancuso said.
Mancuso went on to receive his law degree from the University of Florida in 1987. “After I graduated, I began practicing law in a small firm,” he said. “That taught me a little bit of everything. I was able to feel my way around the law and find out what areas I wanted to devote my concentration to, and that was insurance defense and personal injury work.”
After years of practicing law as an insurance attorney for big insurance companies, Mancuso was involved in a major traffic crash. He was the victim and had to deal with the very same companies he was representing for insurance claims. Mancuso understood the struggle that accident victims had to undergo and decided to change how he practiced law. “It totally changed my perspective on the field,” he said. “I was the person who had to file a lawsuit and had to have their deposition taken, the surgery and nerve conduction studies.”
This experience enlightened Mancuso, and he became more empathic toward his clients. “I really began to appreciate what people go through when they have an accident,” he said. “I could no longer represent insurance companies, and that is when I went on the other side.”
Mancuso knows the ins and outs of both sides of the business, a benefit for many of his clients.
“I have the unfortunate distinction of being a person who has sat on every single chair in the court room,” he said. “I’ve sat as an injured person, the plaintiff attorney, and for people who have been sued as a defense lawyer, and I’ve sat as a mediator during mediations.”
The Law Office of Charles A. Mancuso is located at 301 Clematis St., Suite 3000, West Palm Beach. For more information, visit www.injured247.com or call (561) 704-9246.
