Madeline Clair Hughes Haikala (born November 4, 1964) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

of the

United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama (in case citations, N.D. Ala.) is a federal court in the Eleventh Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are a ...

Biography

Haikala was born Madeline Clair Hughes in 1964, in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. She received her

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in 1986 from

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

. She received her

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

in 1989 from

Tulane University Law School The Tulane University School of Law is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1847, it is the 12th oldest law school in the United States. Campus The law schoo ...

, graduating

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif () is an American honor society for law school graduates. The Order was founded in 1902 at the University of Illinois College of Law. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of trial lawyers, the serjeants-at-la ...

. She worked in private practice from 1989 until 2011, serving at the law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama, Jefferson County. The population was 200,733 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List ...

, handling a broad range of

commercial litigation Commercial law (or business law), which is also known by other names such as mercantile law or trade law depending on jurisdiction; is the body of law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmenta ...

at the trial and

appellate In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

levels, before state and federal courts. From 1998 to 2005, she taught Appellate Law at

Cumberland School of Law The Cumberland School of Law is an American Bar Association, ABA-accredited law school at Samford University in Homewood, Alabama, United States. It was founded in 1847 at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee and is the 11th oldest law sch ...

as an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

. She served as a

United States magistrate judge In United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist U.S. district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges generally oversee first appearances of criminal defendants, set bail, and conduct ...

in the Northern District of Alabama from 2012 to 2013.

Federal judicial service

On May 9, 2013, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

nominated Haikala to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, to the seat vacated by Judge Inge Prytz Johnson, who assumed senior status on October 24, 2012. She received a hearing before the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally known as the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a Standing committee (United States Congress), standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the United States Departm ...

on June 19, 2013, and her nomination was reported to the floor of the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

on July 18, 2013, by a

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "by live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by respondin ...

. The Senate confirmed her nomination on October 14, 2013, by a 90–0 vote. She received her commission on October 16, 2013.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Haikala, Madeline 1964 births Living people 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women lawyers 21st-century American women judges 21st-century American women lawyers 21st-century American lawyers Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama Lawyers from New Orleans Tulane University Law School alumni United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama United States magistrate judges Williams College alumni