Deandra M. Grant

Meet Deandra Grant

Deandra Grant was born in Denton but grew up in Plano and is a proud graduate of Plano Senior High School. A native Texan, her family has lived for generations in and around Gainesville, Texas.

Deandra’s hard-nosed work ethic began at an early age with a variety of teenage jobs: social director at a teen nightclub, clerk at a dress shop and owner/manager of a New Orleans-style sno-cone stand (Mr Sno Ball!), to name a few.

After high school she attended Trinity University in San Antonio then came back home to Dallas for law school at SMU. Deandra has been married to Eric Clendenin for over 20 years and they have two children – Keegan and Rowan.

When not practicing law she is very involved with dog rescue and serves as Vice President of Living the Doxie Dream Rescue & Sanctuary in Royse City. At home she and Eric have 5 rescue dachshunds and you can follow their adventures on their Instagram page @5WienerPack.

Deandra is a huge Van Halen fan (DLR – not Hagar), studies medieval European history as a hobby and loves to travel.

Lawyer Stuff

Deandra has been included in the list of Super Lawyers since 2011. Super Lawyers® is an attorney rating service that is nationally recognized throughout the legal community. After performing exhaustive and rigorous research by an independent research team, they announce their list of highly capable, trustworthy, and competent attorneys in Super Lawyers® Magazine and online. The list represents no more than 5% of the attorneys in Texas.

Deandra is AV® Preeminent ™ Rated by Martindale-Hubbell®, which is the highest rating an attorney can achieve. She was given the AV® Rating for her outstanding professional achievements in the field of DWI law and her contributions to the legal community. She’s also been rated 10.0 by both AVVO and Justia.

Deandra began work on The Texas DWI Manual in 2011 for James Publishing. She calls it her “labor of love”. The first edition was released in 2013. It is updated annually and is considered a “must have” for attorneys defending DWI cases in Texas.

Experience

Deandra graduated in 1990 from Trinity University in San Antonio with a B.S. in Business Administration. She earned her law degree from the SMU School of Law and was licensed by the State Bar of Texas in 1993. Having spent her last year of law school as an intern with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, she began work there as an assistant district attorney in January 1994.

Deandra’s tenure as a prosecutor focused on DWI prosecution. In 1995, she founded her own firm and began defending citizens accused of DWI and other crimes. Deandra developed a reputation for winning “unwinnable” DWI cases which continues to this day. Her extensive DWI trial experience led to teaching trial skills to attorneys around the country at legal seminars. She has practiced criminal defense for over 30 years and represents Texans charged with criminal offenses, including DWI, violent felonies, and sex crimes. As a former prosecutor, she knows firsthand how to counter the prosecutor’s evidence and strategy.

Operator and Testing Experience

Deandra has spent hundreds of hours in training courses and programs related to DWI defense. She has participated in numerous ”dosing” experiments in which people are given specific amounts of alcohol over certain time periods and then tested to see the effect of the alcohol on their mental and physical capabilities. She attended and successfully completed the operator certification course for the Intoxilyzer 5000 in Florida in 2004. This was the breath-test machine used in Texas prior to the purchase of the Intoxilyzer 9000. She learned how to operate the machine and the science behind it. She has also participated in experiments related to the inaccuracy of the machine. 

Deandra has completed both the student course (2008) and the instructor course (2009) on the administration of standardized field sobriety testing (SFST’s), the same National Highway Traffic Safety Administration training course that teaches police officers nationwide how to identify drunk drivers during traffic stops. She now serves as an instructor of the SFST practitioner course to share the knowledge with other attorneys. In 2008, she completed coursework in Atlanta, Georgia, on DWI forensic blood and urine testing. 

In 2011, she began training at Axion Labs in Chicago. The courses include Forensic Chromatography, Forensic Drug Analysis and Forensic Driving Under the Influence of Drugs. She completed the coursework, passed the final exam in 2015 and was awarded the American Chemical Society Forensic Lawyer-Scientist Designation. In 2018 Deandra joined Axion Labs as an assistant chromatography instructor. She spends 5 weeks each year in Chicago at the lab. 

In 2014 Deandra “went back to school”. She completed a Graduate Certificate in Forensic Toxicology from the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine and a Master’s Degree in Pharmaceutical Science – Concentration in Forensic Science from the University of Florida’s College of Pharmacy in 2016.  

Deandra is a national speaker and teacher on topics including trial skills, jury selection, cross examination, field sobriety tests, drugged driving and forensic breath and blood alcohol testing. Since 2019 she’s been honored to serve on the faculty of the Robert F. Borkenstein Course on the Effects of Drugs on Human Performance and Behavior.  

For her entire Curriculum Vitae (‘Resume’), click here.

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