Sandra J. Hairston

United States Attorney

Middle District of North Carolina

Sandra J. Hairston is the United States Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina (MDNC). She was nominated by President Biden on September 28, 2021, and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on November 19, 2021. She was sworn in on November 23, 2021.

Ms. Hairston joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the MDNC in 1990. During her thirty-one-year tenure as an Assistant United States Attorney, Ms. Hairston served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and Lead Attorney in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Section in the MDNC. She also served as the Professional Responsibility Officer, Ethics Advisor, and Criminal Discovery Coordinator for the district.  She was named First Assistant United States Attorney in April 2014, a position she held until November 2021. Ms. Hairston served as Acting United States Attorney for the MDNC from January 14, 2017, until January 3, 2018, and from March 1, 2021, until she was sworn in as United States Attorney on November 23, 2021.

From April 1994 until June 1996, Ms. Hairston served as Chief of the Criminal Division in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Ms. Hairston returned to the MDNC in late June 1996.

Ms. Hairston began her legal career in 1987 as an Assistant District Attorney in the Thirteenth (now Fifteenth) Prosecutorial District of North Carolina.

Ms. Hairston is a 2002 recipient of the Director’s Award from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys for superior performance as an Assistant United States Attorney. In 2015, she received the Peter S. Gilchrist III Award from the North Carolina Bar Association which is given to a prosecutor who exemplifies the highest ideals of the profession. In 2018, she was inducted as a Fellow into the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Ms. Hairston served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee from March 2022 until June 2023.

Ms. Hairston is a 1981 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a 1987 graduate of the North Carolina Central University School of Law.