Judge, Pennsylvania Magisterial District 05-3-10
Pursuing Compassionate Legal Logic
When facing a traffic ticket, landlord dispute or even a preliminary criminal hearing, your first stop through the legal system could be one of Pennsylvania鈥檚 people鈥檚 courts. If you happen to be in the City of Pittsburgh鈥檚 Lawrenceville, Bloomfield and Polish Hill neighborhoods, Xander Orenstein (MCS 2014) would be behind the bench.
Possibly the first openly nonbinary person elected to a judicial seat in the United States, Xander assumed their role as a magisterial district judge in 2022.
They see the job as upholding the law with a common sense approach.
鈥淭here are times when pure logic, as applied to the legal system, is extraordinarily helpful, but it can also come up with a result that hurts absolutely everyone involved,鈥� Xander says.
In one recent case that Xander talks about in general terms, the issue was a code violation and the common sentence was a hefty fine. But looking at the law, Xander saw an option for a community service sentence instead. The code violator became a community volunteer, helping a local nonprofit organization with much-needed repair work.
Xander was drawn to legal work because it combines their academic background in science and problem-solving with compassionate pathways that help people.
鈥淲e need people who apply logic with heart and understanding because this is a human system,鈥� they say. 鈥淎t any given point, we need to take a look at what鈥檚 going on and see if there鈥檚 a better solution, so our society continues moving in a direction that raises everybody up.鈥�
Story by Elizabeth Speed