Robert A. Katzmann, who as chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York helped guarantee legal representation to immigrants, championed civic education and demystified judicial proceedings for the public, died June 9 in a Manhattan hospital. He was 68.

As the son and grandson of Jewish refugees who had fled Germany and Russia, Judge Katzmann was instrumental in the establishment of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, the first government-funded program of legal assistance for noncitizens being held by the authorities under a federal law.

Widely credited as the first federal judge to hold a doctoral degree in government, he believed that while justice ought to be blind, the process of meting it out should be transparent.

To that end, in 2014, he and U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero started the Committee on Civic Education, which culminated in Justice for All: Courts and the Community, an educational initiative to make the judicial system more accessible. During the pandemic, audio of courtroom sessions was live-streamed for the first time.

“What I really wanted to do was bring our courts and our communities closer together,” Judge Katzmann told The New York Law Journal last year. “If I had to say what is my signature initiative, if one can ever talk that way, it would be that.”