At ‘Chai chat,’ Queens judge shares advice with South Asian Indo-Caribbean Bar

By Rachel Vick

Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant sat down with the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean Bar Association of Queens on Wednesday to discuss her trailblazing career on the bench.

The organization’s latest Chai Chat gave members a chance to ask Pandit-Durant for advice, from how to maintain a work-life balance to the best way to reach the bench.

“I love doing this … to get you all to get excited about being in law because I never had anyone mentoring or guiding me in my career,” Pandit-Durant said. “There was nobody that looked like me when I became an ADA.”

Pandit-Durant, who moved to Flushing from India when she was 10, served in the Queens District Attorney’s office for 25 years before being nominated to Civil Court and later Queens Supreme.

She is also the former president of SAICBA-Q, an organization founded to advance the interests of lawyers from the borough’s robust South Asian and Indo-Carribean community.

Pandit-Durant addressed the challenges of entering the field as a South Asian woman, and encouraged participants not to second-guess themselves or their qualifications as they advance. She emphasized the importance of remaining steadfast in any goals. 

“I think anyone practicing 10,15, 20 years, should” consider becoming a judge, she said.  “If you've done things as a lawyer and you think you are fair and have a sense of justice; that's the bottom line.”

Though the pandemic has complicated socialization, Pandit-Durant said networking remains an essential part of advancing in the legal field.
She said she hopes that the group will soon be able to gather in person so she can share a cup of chai the way her mother made it in her childhood — with ginger, a masala blend, sugar and milk after it all comes to a boil.

“It’s the most delicious thing in the world,” she said.