Barbara Kloka Hackett

Barbara Kloka Hackett (March 17, 1928 – December 23, 2018) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Early life and education

Hackett was born in Detroit, the oldest of two daughters, and attended St. Gregory School in northwest Detroit. She completed a Bachelor of Philosophy from the University of Detroit in 1948 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Detroit School of Law in 1950.

Career Hackett was a staff lawyer for the Michigan-Wisconsin Pipeline Company from 1950 to 1951. She was a law clerk to Judge Frank Picard of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan from 1951 to 1952. She was in private practice in Detroit from 1952 to 1967. She was a lawyer for the New York Central Railroad Company from 1963 to 1965.

She was chief law clerk to the Michigan Court of Appeals from 1965 to 1966, and was an assistant prosecuting attorney of Wayne County, Michigan from 1967 to 1972. She then returned to private practice until 1973. After briefly serving as a magistrate judge, she later continued in private practice until 1986, when she was briefly acting chief of the Appellate Division of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.

Federal judicial service Hackett served as a United States magistrate judge for the Eastern District of Michigan from 1973 to 1984, and was the first woman to serve in such a position. Hackett died on December 23, 2018, from declining health at her home in Brighton, Michigan. She was 90.