Patricia S. Phelan runs The Law Office of Patricia
S. Phelan – a practice dedicated exclusively to the field of special
education law and advocacy. Ms. Phelan has been practicing law for over
eighteen years and is an experienced litigator as well as a parent
of a child with a disability. Ms. Phelan has served as the Legislative
Vice President on the Executive Board of the Special Education Parent
Teachers’ Association (SEPTA) in the South Orangetown Central School
District. Ms. Phelan is also a member of the Council of Parent
Attorneys and Advocates and The Elija Foundation. In addition,
Ms. Phelan has worked for Giant Leaps Occupational Therapy, PC – a
pediatric occupational therapy facility focusing on the fine motor
and sensory needs of children who are developmentally impaired.
Ms. Phelan is a graduate of Washington University
School of Law in St. Louis, MO (1989). During law school, she was
an Associate Editor on the Law Revue [Washington University Law
Quarterly] and a published author [“Challenging the Peremptory
Challenge: Sixth Amendment Implications of the Discriminatory Use
of Peremptory Challenges”, 67 Wash. U.L.Q. 547 (1989)]. She received
her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Union College in Schenectady,
NY (1985). Ms. Phelan is admitted to practice law in both the states
of NY and CT.
Ms. Phelan has an extensive litigation background.
Upon graduation from Law School, she was a state prosecutor at the
Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, NY. She resigned
in 1996 as a Senior Assistant District Attorney, assigned to the Major
Narcotics Bureau. There she handled complex narcotic trials. Upon
leaving the DA’s Office, Ms. Phelan went to a private firm in Long
Island, NY, where she practiced mostly matrimonial litigation. She
also defended a number of federal and state criminal cases. Following
that, Ms. Phelan worked as a consultant to general civil/criminal
litigation firms, while staying home to raise her three young children.
Ms. Phelan has vast personal experience with special
education. Two of her children have required special education services.
The Phelans’ eldest daughter is diagnosed with PDD-NOS and is successfully
integrated in a co-teach elementary school classroom in her resident
public school. The Phelans also have a child who received Early Intervention
services.
Since she learned about her eldest daughter’s disability,
Ms. Phelan has spent a lot of time learning about special education
law and advocacy. Ms. Phelan recognizes the extreme need for informed
and qualified advocates in the area of special education. They must
be caring and sensitive. She also realizes how important it is for
advocates in this field to have insight into what parents and children
are going through. They also need a realistic understanding of the
school districts’ perspective. It is in an effort to achieve this
collaborative symmetry, coupled with her passion for empowering parents
and their children to understand their rights and access the “free
and appropriate public education” to which they are entitled under
the law, that Ms. Phelan opened The Law Office of Patricia S. Phelan.
