It is with immense pride that we announce that two new accomplished attorneys, Andrés J. Gallegos and Jennifer M. Sender, are joining our team. Andrés and Jennifer bring decades of experience on disability rights and healthcare law. Their practice focuses on tenaciously fighting for the rights of people with disabilities in healthcare systems, hospitals, nursing homes, dental clinics, eye care clinics, retail-based health clinics, public places, and in a multitude of other settings. Andrés and Jennifer will be leading our new Disability Rights Practice group advocating systemic changes on behalf of people with disabilities in Illinois and across the country.
“Andrés and Jennifer are at the forefront of seeking equitable access to healthcare, public places, and justice in all spaces,” said Shareholder Matthew Piers. “Their passion for the work and results for their clients impressed us from the first time we met.”
Before joining HSPRD, Andrés and Jennifer were shareholders at Robbins DiMonte, Ltd. Andrés is the Chair of the National Council on Disability, which advises the President, Congress, and federal agencies on matters affecting persons with disabilities. He received a congressional appointment to the Council in 2018 and President Biden elevated him to serve as the Council’s Chair on the afternoon that the President was sworn into office. Andrés is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading disability rights lawyers. Andrés is also, as he puts it, “a member of the disability community, Class of 1996,” having sustained that year a spinal cord injury, resulting in quadriplegia.
Jennifer Sender is a talented litigator and negotiator with decades of class action and other litigation experience spanning a wide range practice areas and forums. Her current practice focuses on litigation of disability rights claims under federal and state law, including claims for the provision of sign language interpreters, accessible public right of ways, and access to healthcare and healthcare facilities. Jennifer is also a Commissioner with the Illinois Deaf and Hard of Hearing Commission, appointed by Governor Pritzker, and former president of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois.
Their work together has received numerous accolades, including the Outstanding Achievement Award from The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and the Excellence in Accessibility Advocacy Award from the Illinois Association of the Deaf.
HSPRD is thrilled to deepen our disability rights work with the launch of this new practice, to compliment decades of work fighting discrimination, advocating for civil rights, and representing employees, immigrants, and whistleblowers. We look forward to their continued success and partnering to expand robust advocacy for people with disabilities.
