Melinda L. Haag

Government

In August, Haag was sworn in as U.S. attorney in San Francisco, becoming only the second woman to ever hold the post in the Northern District (the first, Annette Abbott Adams, ran the office from 1918-1920). Haag, who left a white-collar criminal defense practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to take the job, is no stranger to the office. A former assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, she was recruited in 1999 to become deputy chief of major crimes in San Francisco by then-U.S. attorney Robert S. Mueller III. Before she left to join Orrick in 2003, Haag also served as the chief of the office's white-collar unit. While there, she prosecuted Pelican Bay prison guards who were convicted of conspiring to entice inmates to beat up other inmates.