Ogle takes diverse personal, professional background into judicial candidacy

By Jacob Kaye

Andrea Ogle may not have been born in Queens but she’s just as much a Queens kid as anyone else.

Moving from Guyana to Cambria Heights with her family when she was a teen, Ogle, who is on the ballot for Queens County Civil Court judge, has lived in the borough for most of her life.

As an undergrad, she studied at Queens College. And though she left for a brief time to study law at Seton Hall Law School and work, she eventually found her way back to the World’s Borough, where she opened a private practice.

And the borough has played a central role in her motivation to run for a spot on the bench.

“I saw how diverse Queens was becoming and I also realized that the bench did not reflect the community that it served,” Ogle told the Eagle. “I started getting encouragement from the community and from judges in the courts to consider pursuing a career on the bench because they felt that based on the work that I was doing, and the passion that I had for what I was doing and the experience that I had over the years, that all of those things would be beneficial for the community as a judge.”

In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one, Ogle, who is vying for one of two open seats on the Civil Court as a Democrat, is very likely to get elected. If she does, she will be part of what is likely the most diverse slate of judicial candidates Queens has ever seen.

In addition to Ogle, three other women of color – Queens Supreme Court candidate Karen Gopee, New York City Civil Court Queens, 4th Municipal Court District candidate Cassandra Johnson and countywide Civil Court candidate Soma Syed – are likely to take the bench.

Queens County is likely to go from having never elected a South Asian or Indo-Caribbean person to the bench, to having elected multiple.

“I believe that our diversity and ethnicity shaped who we are,” Ogle said.

The attorney said that having a mutli-cultural background has set her up nicely for the duties of a law professional

“I had the advantage of taking the best out of the culture that I was born in assimilating into the culture that I came into – the United States – and it enabled me to engage in positive cross-cultural exchanges,” she said. “That was actually helpful for me, in working in the community like queens, to work with ethnically and culturally diverse people and to assist them with the challenges that they faced.”

Ogle, who is a member of multiple local bar associations including the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean Bar Association, the Queens County Bar Association and the Macon B. Allen Black Bar Association, has spent a significant portion of her career working in Family Court.

And while she doesn’t necessarily have a dream judicial assignment if elected, she does feel that her decades spent in Family Court have prepared her well for whatever assignment she may get.

“Family Court crosses over into all areas of law,” Ogle said. “It's not just about custody and child abuse and neglect.”

Cases touch on immigration, criminal, housing law and more, she said. Beyond that she hopes to look for mentorships and to take Continuing Legal Education courses to bulk up on the things she has yet to have experience with.

Regardless, she’ll have her experiences with meditation to fall back on, something she’s proud of.

“What helps me the most is really the training that I've had in mediation and conflict resolution. In everything that you do in the law, when you're dealing with people, especially because it's such a high conflict environment, you have to strike a balance,” Ogle said.

“You have to be respectful to everybody, you have to listen to what they have to say, but you also have to be in a position where you have to draw from everything that is being presented to you, and pick out what's important, and advocate from that perspective,” she added. “But at the same time, you have to make people feel like their voices are being heard, as well, and do the right thing for them.”