In 1972, she was appointed Director of the Consumer Affairs Unit in the Syracuse Corporation Counsel's Office, serving in that post for a year.
In 1986, Pooler decided to run for the United States House of Representatives in New York's 27th congressional district.
She challenged conservative Republican incumbent George C. Wortley, who was seeking a fourth term.
But her Republican opponent that year, Syracuse City Councilman James T. Walsh, was a much more difficult target for her attacks.
[2] Pooler was nominated by President Clinton on November 6, 1997, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated by Judge Frank Altimari.
The court overturned the decision of Pooler and her two fellow Second Circuit jurists, Denny Chin and Susan Carney.
In August 2017, Pooler dissented when the court upheld the insider trading conviction of Mathew Martoma, in which she argued that the majority was improperly overruling circuit precedent.