William J. Phelan, IV is the Litigation Partner for the Philadelphia office of the national domestic relations law firm of Cordell & Cordell, P.C. He advocates in various areas of family law, including, but not limited to, divorce, prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements, child custody and support, equitable distribution, spousal support, alimony, adoptions and termination of parental rights, and domestic violence protection. In addition to being a seasoned trial attorney, he serves as a member of the firm’s Appellate Practice Division, handling his own appeals in Pennsylvania and assisting other attorneys with their appeals to various intermediate and high-level courts. Mr. Phelan is active with the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Family Law Section, Appellate Advocacy Committee, and is currently the Chair of the Disability Services Committee. He was President of the Doris Jonas Freed Matrimonial American Inn of Court (2021-22) and served on its executive board for several years. He is a Council Member of the Brehon Law Society (a legal organization comprised of attorneys and judges of Irish ancestry). He has been selected to: the Irish Legal 100 in 2019 and 2023; the 2022 Appellate Lawyers; Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2022 (for a total of five years); The National Advocates Top 100 List; National Academy of Family Law Attorneys’ Top 10 Under 40 Attorneys; and the 10 Best Family Law Attorneys for Client Satisfaction in Pennsylvania by the American Institute of Family Law Attorneys. Within his firm, Mr. Phelan volunteers as a mentor for other attorneys regarding development of their litigation and appellate skills. He presents and is published frequently on the topics of family law and disability rights. Mr. Phelan is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. District Courts for Eastern Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. He graduated magna cum laude from The Catholic University of America earning a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Civilizations and then a Master of Arts in Congressional and Presidential Studies (Politics). He earned his Juris Doctor, with a certificate in Law and Public Policy, from The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. During law school, Mr. Phelan served as a Senior Editor for The Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy. Mr. Phelan attended the American Bar Association’s Family Law Trial Advocacy Institute. He is a proud graduate of La Salle College High School. Mr. Phelan volunteers on the leadership committee for Project Magis, a group of legal and financial services professionals who fundraise for local community support programs.  Previously, he was President of the Board of Directors of Catholic Charities Appeal of Greater Philadelphia (serving on its board from 2016 to 2022).

Mr. McAndrews has worked for over forty (40) years in the public and private sectors in several roles in the fields of estate planning and disability law. He is the founder and Managing Partner Emeritus of McAndrews, Mehalick, Connolly, Hulse, and Ryan Law Offices, P.C., a fifteen attorney law firm with offices in Berwyn, Scranton, Wyomissing, Wilmington Delaware, and Metropolitan Washington D.C., which regularly represents individuals and their families in a variety of areas, including estate planning/administration, special education matters, special needs trusts, elder law, abuse of vulnerable persons, guardianships, higher education abuse/discipline matters, and injury cases. He frequently acts as a consultant to other public and private attorneys with regard to estate planning/administration, disability and special education issues. Mr. McAndrews 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 intellectually disabled and drafted proposed legislation designed to modernize Pennsylvania’s legal basis for the provision of care to the intellectually disabled. He served for fifteen (15) years as a Special Education Hearing Officer for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and was assigned to determine the appropriate educational classification, program, and placement of school-age children with disabilities. Mr. McAndrews was also selected to serve as one of the first appellate hearing officers in Pennsylvania under new Department of Education regulations. During his seventeen (17) years as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia area, and thereafter in criminal defense matters, he handled many cases involving defenses of mental disability. He successfully pursued a conviction against the wealthiest murderer in American history, John E. DuPont, for the murder of Olympic gold medal wrestler, David Schultz. He is also a frequent contributor for national and local news media involving legal and political issues and has offered commentary for CBS, NBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Legal lntelligencer, and many other news outlets. For over 30 years, Mr. McAndrews was an instructor of Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Justice and Business Law at Villanova University, Immaculata University and Drexel University. He is a frequent lecturer to national conferences, Bar Association Committees and advocacy groups concerning special education, estate planning/administration, the rights of the elderly and individuals and with disabilities and has authored numerous articles regarding these matters. He has served as a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Elder Law Council and served for a decade as Chairman of The Disability Law Committee of the Delaware County Bar Association. Mr. McAndrews obtained his law degree from Villanova’s Charles Widger School of Law in 1978 and was awarded a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education together with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Villanova University in 1975. Dennis is the author and sole actor of a play entitled “If JFK Survived Dallas: Presidential Reflections of an Elder Statesman”. He has also written “The Open” a screenplay which chronicles Ken Venturi’s dramatic victory in the 1964 United States Open Championship where he overcame heat exhaustion to achieve a triumph after years of being a washed-up tour professional.

Ms. Mehalick is a shareholder of McAndrews Law Offices and the supervising partner for the firm’s estates and trusts department. She is an accomplished estates and trusts attorney whose practice includes Estate Planning, Special Needs Trusts, Guardianship, Post – Litigation Planning, Personal Injury Settlement Planning, Trust Administration Counseling, Waiver Program Counseling, Medicaid/Social Security Compliance, Estate Administration, Elder Law Planning, and Orphans Court matters. Ms. Mehalick has extensive experience in post-litigation planning and utilizing various techniques and trusts designed to meet the specific needs of the plaintiff, which may include maintaining eligibility for public benefits or making a plan to protect the monies. She regularly assists families in navigating through special needs planning, whether a young child, adult or elder family member is involved. These efforts include qualifying clients for public benefits when they receive a lawsuit recovery, preparing special needs trusts, bringing guardianship proceedings, and carefully crafting an estate plan that maintains a disabled family member’s eligibility for essential public benefits. She is privileged to counsel clients regarding elder law issues and ways to protect the assets and promote the dignity of loved ones who may require skilled nursing care. She regularly appears in Orphans’ Court and she is a frequent lecturer to both attorneys and families on these topics. Ms. Mehalick previously practiced civil litigation in Northern Virginia, and she has litigated suits in both Virginia and Maryland. Prior to her private practice, she served as the judicial law clerk for the Honorable Stanley P. Klein, Judge of the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Fairfax County, Virginia. Ms. Mehalick holds an LL.M. (Master of Laws) in Taxation and a Certification in Estate Planning from the Villanova University School of Law, Graduate Tax Program, and she received her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School, where she served as the executive articles editor on the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal. In addition to maintaining her practice at McAndrews Law, Ms. Mehalick serves as an Adjunct Professor of Taxation and Special Needs Planning at the American College of Financial Services.