[1][3] Due to his "experience in the art of shorthand",[3] Manser was hired by the Lewiston firm of Frye, Cotton & White, where he read law.
[1][3] Manser was naturalized as a U.S. citizen on his 21st birthday,[1] and gained admission to the bar in Androscoggin County, Maine, the following year, in September 1896.
[1] On April 1, 1928, Governor Ralph Owen Brewster appointed Manser to the Maine Superior Court,[1][3] and on July 18, 1935, Democratic Governor Louis J. Brann appointed the Republican Manser as an Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
Organized labor advocates criticized the sentences as "deliberate violations of the rights of free speech and assembly", while Manser countered that "the penalty must be such as to promulgate and endeavor to teach respect for the law".
The union leaders were released after two months, and brought their cases went to the full court, which overruled Manser.