Linda Mastandrea

Linda Mastandrea
Wheelchair Track

Linda Mastandrea is an attorney concentrating her practice in disability law, a published author, and an accomplished athlete.

Mastandrea earned her BA from the University of Illinois in 1986, and her J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1994. While an undergraduate, she learned about wheelchair sports and disability advocacy. Mastandrea represented the United States seven times in international competition, including two Paralympic Games, winning 15 gold and 5 silver medals in wheelchair track. She set national, world and Paralympic records numerous times.

Mastandrea practices in disability law and civil rights, representing people with disabilities who have experienced discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and government services and benefits. She has taught Disability Law, lectured on the ADA and other disability laws nationwide, and serves as a special education hearing officer.

Mastandrea is the first female Paralympian inducted into both the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame and the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. She has been named one of Crain’s Chicago Business Forty Under 40, and received the International Olympic Committee President’s Disabled Athlete Award, among others. Her book, Sports and the Physically Challenged: An Encyclopedia of People, Events and Organizations was published in 2006.

Mastandrea serves on AT & T’s Advisory Panel on Access and Aging, the City of Chicago’s Building Board of Appeals, the International Paralympic Committee Legal and Ethics Committee, and the boards of Access Living, Variety of Illinois, US Variety and the Midwest Olympians and Paralympians.

Last year, Mastandrea was proud to be part of the Chicago 2016 organization and presentation team that pursued the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the city of Chicago. She had the honor of presenting alongside President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley.