The Honorable Stephanie L. Haines was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1969. She graduated from Juniata College in 1992 and from Ohio Northern University College of Law in 1995. After she graduated from law school, she served as a law clerk to President Judge Eugene E. Fike, II, of the 16th Judicial District, Somerset County Court of Common Pleas, in Somerset, Pennsylvania. During her clerkship, she was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the United States Army, and on October 1, 1996, she entered active duty service in the United States Army Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps.

After completing the Army’s JAG Officer’s Basic Course, she reported to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in December of 1996. While at Fort Campbell, in addition to earning her Air Assault Badge, she served as a legal assistance attorney and a prosecutor. After her tour of duty at Fort Campbell, in June of 1999, she was assigned to the United States Army Legal Services Agency, Defense Appellate Division, in Arlington, Virginia, as an appellate defense attorney. In April of 2002, she left active duty and became an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) in the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of West Virginia.

Following her release from active duty in 2002, she remained in the Army as a JAG officer in a reserve capacity, with a continuing assignment at the Defense Appellate Division. In June of 2005, she resigned her Army Commission and accepted a commission as a JAG officer in the United States Air Force, where she continues to serve in a reserve capacity. She currently holds the rank of Colonel and is a member of the West Virginia Air National Guard, in Charleston, West Virginia.

From 2002 until 2006, she served as a criminal AUSA in the Southern District of West Virginia. In 2006, she transferred to the United States Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Pennsylvania and served as a criminal AUSA in the Johnstown Branch Office until she was sworn in as a district judge for the Johnstown Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on October 8, 2019.

She is married to Scott Shirley and they have two children.