Rosemary S. Pooler, a lifelong champion of consumer rights who broke barriers by becoming the first woman to serve as a state and federal judge in two upstate New York districts, died on Aug. 10 at her home in Syracuse, N.Y. She was 85.

Her death was announced by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where she had sat since 1998.

Judge Pooler got her start defending consumers when she was appointed chairwoman and executive director of New York State’s Consumer Protection Board by Gov. Hugh L. Carey in 1975. While in that post, she defied food manufacturers by helping grocery shoppers decode the expiration dates on canned goods and advised car buyers of their rights under the so-called lemon law, which offers legal remedies for people who find themselves with a vehicle that has significant defects.

When she was a civil rights lawyer, Judge Pooler, a committed feminist, represented two fellow members of the National Organization for Women who in 1970 successfully challenged the century-long men-only policy of McSorley’s Old Ale House in Lower Manhattan.