With late-career move to Towson firm, O’Byrne expands focus on ‘special needs’ planning

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At 66 years old, some lawyers might be considering retirement.

Not Mary E. O’Byrne, who began the new year with a move to a Towson law firm that will allow her to expand her focus on the field of special needs planning — a complex and underserved area of law that assists people with disabilities and their families.

O’Byrne left her own firm, which she launched in 2017, to become a partner at Bowie & Jensen LLC, a full-service law firm with more than a dozen attorneys.

“The big appeal of coming to Bowie & Jensen was having the resources to support the continuing and growing demand for special needs services,” O’Byrne told The Daily Record.

Special needs planning spans a wide array of legal services across an individual’s lifetime, O’Byrne said. The process can begin when a child is diagnosed with a disability and their parents want to start estate planning in preparation for the future.

When a young person with a disability is nearing adulthood, other legal steps become important: establishing their decision-making capacity and setting up supports for their adult life, for example.

“Another whole aspect is around envisioning a good life as each individual defines it,” O’Byrne said. “Having meaningful work or activities, living in a safe and secure home, being able to be fully a part of your community, being able to get places, go shopping, run errands, see your doctor.”

“It’s a deeply rewarding field, in part because of that long-term relationship with people,” she said.

Special needs planning also involves navigating a confusing maze of government benefits. It’s a highly technical specialty that has made O’Byrne a sought-after expert in the field.

Mary Roby Sanders, a family law attorney and partner at Turnbull, Nicholson & Sanders P.A., said it can be critical for family law practitioners to consult an expert like O’Byrne, whose deep understanding of government programs and their eligibility requirements is important to help clients with special needs. The wrong financial move can hurt a client’s ability to benefit from assistance programs.

“There are a lot of pitfalls when you’re representing either a special needs spouse or there are special needs children involved,” Sanders said. “It’s very important to get the advice of someone who knows this area of the law.”

A “second-career attorney,” O’Byrne entered the University of Maryland School of Law at 40 and began working in elder law after receiving her J.D. in 1998. From there, she moved into special needs planning, a niche practice that has remained the focus of her law career.

“The demand for services from folks like myself is pretty significant,” O’Byrne said. “It is an area that’s not as widely known or populated (within the legal profession).”

O’Byrne is the immediate past president of the Special Needs Alliance, a national organization that helps connect people with disabilities and their families with local attorneys.

The increasing demand for special needs planning made the move to Bowie & Jensen all the more logical, O’Byrne said.

“Business is booming,” she said. “In the post-COVID era, changes in staffing made the move to a larger firm a very practical and future-oriented kind of choice.”