ABOUT DEVIAN

Devian Shondel Daniels, Esq. is a Queens County resident for the past twenty-one years, and has built her life’s work around seeking justice for others. Devian currently works as a litigator for the past 15 years and has a diverse resume which includes: litigating as lead counsel in scores of trials, handling thousands of pretrial, compliance and settlement conferences and mediations in Civil Court, Family Court, Federal Court, Supreme Court, Surrogate’s Court. Devian is at home in a courtroom where she has independently stood beside our community members as they sought justice before the court.  In her career, Devian has represented a wide array of community members from police abuse victims to employees in unemployment hearings.  All of her clients have the same trait- they were seeking justice.

Today, besides her law office work, Devian also has responsibilities as a Community Counselor to District 28 where she meets and resolves legal issues for local constituents.  As a Community Counselor for Districts 7, 14 and 28 over the past five years, Devian is hands-on with sharing her vast legal knowledge with our community’s most vulnerable on a wide variety of legal issues. During this weekly tenure, Devian not only showcases her ability to think on her feet and problem-solve but she also delivers this with endless amounts of compassion and knowledge to the constituents.

Devian has judicial experience.  She served as a paid Arbitrator with the MTA’s Transit Adjudications Bureau. There she wrote scores of judicial decisions.  She has also served as an unpaid volunteer Arbitrator with the Queens County Civil Court – Small Claims Part and participated by applying jurisprudence, in the actual process of judicial decision-making. Thus, while she has experience writing judicial decisions through her tenure as an MTA Arbitrator, Devian’s superior legal writing and impeccable grammatical skills were exactly why DC37 hired her as an Education Consultant to teach dozens of their attorney union members to prepare for civil service promotional exams.

Devian was born in Guyana and immigrated to the Bronx as an eight-year-old.  A product of the NYC public school system, Devian attended Brooklyn Technical High School and majored in BioMed because she wanted to become a pediatrician like her older sister. At Allegheny College Devian studied Political Science and minored in Spanish.       Upon college graduation, Devian spent her gap year between college and law school in southeast Queens. She was overjoyed to be hired by ChaRosa Foundation, a Cambria Heights nonprofit to serve as the Education Director, where her role was to encourage and assist high school students to find their purpose and dream big. Devian loved every moment of her interactions with Springfield Garden HS students and Campus Magnet HS students and the opportunity to encourage them to go to college.

Instead of following her sister’s footsteps to medical school, Devian, attended CUNY Law School because it promised and delivered law in the public service. Besides earning her Juris Doctor degree, Devian earned credentials as a Moot Court champ, when she along with a teammate, won first place during the 2005 CUNY Law School Moot Court Competition.  At graduation, she was awarded the “Stealth Bomber” award by her graduating class.  While at CUNY Law School, she completed internships at the Office of the Chief Court Attorney of the New York City Criminal Court and at the Florence, Italy office of General Electric. Most compellingly, she participated in the award-winning CUNY Law School Defenders Clinic where she represented low-income Queens residents in criminal court misdemeanor cases under a student practice order. She loved being in court and knew she had found her purpose and passion.

Devian has been admitted to the New York State Bar since January 2007 and has been admitted to practice in the following federal courts: Eastern District of New York, Southern District of New York and Western District of New York.

***Fun facts about Devian or as those closest to her say, Dev:

She is a volunteer Girl Scouts leader (pre-covid); she leads a weekly book discussion and study group; she is an avid swimmer, an avid hiker and an amateur pianist.***

In conclusion, it is undisputed that Devian Shondel Daniels has the experience, skills, heart and temperament to be a fair and impartial judge who will represent the best interests and values of Queens County.