BERWYN, PA — Dennis C. McAndrews, founder and managing partner emeritus of McAndrews, Mehalick, Connolly, Hulse and Ryan P.C., has been named an “Unsung Heroes” winner in The Legal Intelligencer’s 2026 Pennsylvania Legal Awards.
The awards program, organized by ALM and Law.com, recognizes attorneys, firms, and legal professionals across Pennsylvania and Delaware. Honorees are scheduled to be recognized June 11 at the Hilton at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia.
McAndrews founded McAndrews Law Offices in 1982 and has spent more than four decades representing children with disabilities and their families in matters involving special education, estate planning, guardianship, special needs trusts, abuse litigation, Title IX representation, and right-to-treatment cases.
He also served as executive director and staff counsel to Pennsylvania State Senate select committees that evaluated the state’s care system for people with intellectual disabilities and drafted proposed modernization legislation.
McAndrews served for 15 years as a special education hearing officer for the Pennsylvania Department of Education and was among the first appellate hearing officers appointed for special education disputes in the state.
Earlier in his legal career, he worked as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia and Delaware County and later served as a special prosecutor in Commonwealth v. John E. duPont.
In addition to private practice, McAndrews has taught law and public policy courses at Villanova University and Immaculata College. He currently teaches civil rights, civil liberties, and criminal justice at Villanova University.
McAndrews received the Villanova University Law Alumni Award for Excellence in 2019, an honor the university said had only been awarded twice previously in its history.
He has also been recognized by organizations including Super Lawyers, Main Line Today, The Daily Local, and Martindale-Hubbell, where he received the AV Preeminent rating for professional ethics and legal ability.
Outside the courtroom, McAndrews has worked as a legal and political commentator for national and regional media outlets, including ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Associated Press.
He is also the playwright and performer behind the one-man production “If JFK Survived Dallas,” portraying President John F. Kennedy as an elder statesman. The production has been staged in Ireland, Texas, Washington, D.C., New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and across Pennsylvania.
McAndrews earned both bachelor’s degrees in political science and education from Villanova University in 1975 and received his juris doctor from Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law in 1978. He is admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
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