Dennis C. McAndrews is the founding shareholder of McAndrews Law Offices, P.C. Mr. McAndrews graduated with a double major in Education and Political Science from Villanova University and received his law degree from the Villanova School of Law.
He has worked for over twenty-five years in the public and private sectors in several roles in the field of disability law. Mr. McAndrews regularly represents individuals with disabilities and their families in a variety of areas, including special education matters, special needs trusts, guardianship, estate planning, right-to-treatment cases, and injury cases. He frequently serves as a consultant to other public and private attorneys with regard to disability and special education issues.
He has served as Executive Director and Staff Counsel to two select committees of the Pennsylvania State Senate which evaluated Pennsylvania’s system of care for the mentally retarded and drafted proposed legislation designed to modernize Pennsylvania’s legal basis for the provision of care to the mentally retarded. Mr. McAndrews served for fifteen years as a Special Education Hearing Officer for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and was regularly assigned to determine the appropriate educational classification, program, and placement of school age children with disabilities. In 1990, he was selected to serve as one of the first appellate hearing officers in Pennsylvania under new Department of Education regulations. During his sixteen years as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia area, and thereafter in criminal defense matters, he handled many cases involving defenses of mental disability. He was a special prosecutor in the murder trial of Commonwealth vs. John E. duPont.
Mr. McAndrews is an instructor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Criminal Justice at Villanova University. He is a frequent lecturer to national conferences, Bar Association Committees and advocacy groups in Pennsylvania concerning estate planning, special education, and the rights of the disabled. He has authored numerous articles regarding these topics. He served for a decade as Chairman of The Disability Law Committee of the Delaware County Bar Association.
Pennsylvania
Special Education Law
Special Needs Trusts
Guardianship
Estate Planning
Estate Administration
Right-to-Treatment Cases
“Our son was a gifted student who always did well in school. However, he began having real difficulty in going to school and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and school phobia. None of the IEP’s that the school district put forth came close to meeting our son’s needs. Rather than a helpful attitude, the school district took an adversarial position towards our family. In the absence of any constructive ideas from the school district, and after several months with no effective plan in place, we took it upon ourselves to hire an educational consultant. The consultant recommended therapeutic boarding schools in the West. Following his advice, we sent our son to two schools he recommended and our son received his high school diploma from a school in Montana three years later.
The educational consultant also recommended that we hire an attorney so that we could try to get help from our school district in paying the staggering amount of $ 6,000 per month that the schools in the West cost. That’s when we first met Dennis, and he agreed to take our case.
Through his knowledge, professionalism, and compassion, he gave us what we needed most at that time—hope. Besides his legal expertise, he united our family again and gave us the confidence that things would work out. His instincts for our case proved effective in dealing with a very obstinate school district, and he not only implemented an agreement with our school district that they would pay 100 % of our son’s schooling in the West, but he negotiated a settlement whereby the district also was forced to pay all of our family’s traveling expenses when visiting our son (more than 14 trips in all). Needless to say, we owe Dennis a huge debt of gratitude. We feel that he is in the top of his field in educational law.
A happy footnote to our case: Our son graduated summa cum laude from college and has been accepted for graduate study at the University of Chicago.”
— Mr. and Mrs. B.
“Dennis was instrumental in helping my daughter during a difficult time in her life and I am grateful to him for that. He had a better understanding of how to deal with a troubled pre-teen than many of the educators and psychologists in my local school district. I have highly recommended him to others looking for an educational attorney.”
“As always, Dennis is responsive, understands our company’s lines of business and the special populations it serves. He addresses legal issues presented to him on many levels. He addresses how a specific action will impact our organization on a publicity level, financial level, and regarding licensing and funding. He is very comprehensive.”
— J.S.
“McAndrews Law Offices has been responsive to all of our requests. Dennis and Heidi, and the other attorneys at the firm, have consistently been able to answer all of our questions -- it is the only firm in our geographic area which has the expertise to handle complex special education issues, and the firm does so with tact and diplomacy.”
— A.N.N.
“I wish I had the gift of words to adequately describe the attention, time, and care we experienced from Dennis and Jan during our seemingly impossible contest. There was so much dedication to explore and win our case. Winning the case has changed our lives forever.”
— E.H.
“The best experience was Dennis asking me about my son and his educational program. He identified a need to renew my case, offered to review my son’s files and we ultimately determined that his school had basically failed to support him in the way he needs. I feel that finding this out and attempting to correct it will help my son live up to his potential and help him achieve his dreams of living an independent life – Thank you!”
— K.S.
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