Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit joins NYU Law as a professor of practice, effective January 21. Katzmann’s new role coincides with his assumption of senior status as a federal judge on January 21.
Since 2001, Katzmann has taught the Administrative Process Seminar at the Law School as an adjunct professor. He will continue teaching the seminar and related courses in upcoming semesters, and also continue his longstanding relationship with NYU Law’s Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA). Katzmann has served on IJA’s advisory body since 2004 and as a faculty member of its New Appellate Judges Seminar since 2002. In 2011, he delivered NYU Law’s Madison Lecture, which led to the widely acclaimed Oxford University Press book, Judging Statutes. In 2018, NYU’s Annual Survey of American Law dedicated its 75th volume to him.
“Judge Katzmann is not only one of the country’s leading jurists, but also an insightful scholar, a celebrated teacher, and tremendous institution builder,” says Dean Trevor Morrison. “NYU Law will benefit greatly from his expanded role with us.”
The only federal jurist with both a law degree and a doctorate in political science, Katzmann received a PhD in government from Harvard University and a JD from Yale Law School, where he was an article and book review editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following a clerkship for Judge Hugh Bownes on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, he joined the Brookings Institution, where he held several roles as a Fellow, eventually becoming acting program director. At the time of his appointment to the federal appellate bench in 1999, he was Walsh Professor of Government, Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University; a Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and president of the Governance Institute.
Katzmann was chief judge of the Second Circuit from 2013 to 2020. He has served on and chaired a variety of committees by appointment of the Chief Justice.
Improving immigrants’ access to representation in the US court system has been a focus of Katzmann’s recent public service. He organized the Study Group on Immigrant Representation in 2008, a working group focused on identifying and solving the challenges of inadequate counsel for immigrants. The Study Group’s efforts led to the creation of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, which launched in 2013 as the first government-funded program providing legal counsel for detained noncitizens. In 2014, Katzmann founded the Immigrant Justice Corps, a fellowship program for recent law school and college graduates dedicated to help meet the need for high-quality legal assistance for immigrants. He also launched Justice For All: Courts and the Community, a Second Circuit initiative geared toward increasing public understanding of the court system and further connecting courts to their communities.
Katzmann has authored several books, including Judging Statutes; Regulatory Bureaucracy; Institutional Disability; and Courts and Congress. He edited The Law Firm and the Public Good; Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intellectual in Public Life; and Judges and Legislators; and co-edited Managing Appeals in Federal Court. For his public service and scholarship, he has received numerous honors and recognitions.
Posted January 21, 2021