It’s hard work to run a judicial campaign, courting supporters and making the rounds through the city’s labyrinth of political clubs, but Eve Markewich, first-time candidate for surrogate judge, faces an extra obstacle.

She is what doctors call a “congenital bilateral amputee” – she was born without legs.

Despite having to use prosthetics, Ms. Markewich, the youngest child in a family of labor attorneys from the Upper West Side, graduated from Harvard College and Columbia Law School and served for six years as a Democratic district leader.

She also fights for the rights of disabled people, serving as vice president of a national nonprofit group, the Amputee Coalition of America.

An issue of imminent concern, she said, is that some insurers, including her own, will cover purchase costs for an adult of only one set of legs in a lifetime.

That, she said, denies many disabled people access to the most technologically advanced prosthetics.

In her case, she said, she was forced to make a decision between purchasing a new set of computer-operated legs, which cost $120,000, or running for the office of surrogate judge, which brings an annual salary of $136,400. Through the state’s Department of Insurance, Ms. Markewich said, she was able to compel her insurer to cover the cost of the new prosthetics.

Meanwhile, her campaign for the bench continues.

“Everything you experience in life has an impact on who you are,” she said of her disability. “I’m more a fighter, I push harder for things.”