Madeline Haikala

Madeline Clair Hughes Haikala (born 1964) is the chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Biography

Haikala was born Madeline Clair Hughes in 1964, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1986 from Williams College. She received her Juris Doctor in 1989 from Tulane University Law School, graduating Order of the Coif. She worked in private practice from 1989 until 2011, serving at the law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC in Birmingham, Alabama, handling a broad range of commercial litigation at the trial and appellate levels, before state and federal courts. From 1998 to 2005, she taught Appellate Law at Cumberland School of Law as an adjunct professor. She served as a United States magistrate judge in the Northern District of Alabama from 2012 to 2013.

Federal judicial service

On May 9, 2013, President Barack Obama 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. The Senate confirmed her nomination on October 14, 2013, by a 90–0 vote. She received her commission on October 16, 2013. She became chief judge of the court in 2026.