Background
One of four children of Theodore Michael Haik, Senior, and the former Margaret Hannie, both deceased, Richard Haik was born in Lafayette but reared in New Iberia, Louisiana.
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Richard Theodore Haik
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Education
He graduated in 1968 from Catholic High School in New Iberia, where he was a three-year lettermen in football and an all-state defensive end/fullback. In 1971, he received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then named the University of Southwestern Louisiana, where he was a four-year letterman in football for the Ragin" Cajuns.
Career
He received his Juris Doctor in 1975 from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. He was in the private practice of law in New Iberia from 1975 to 1984. He is an ardent Ragin" Cajuns football fan and an avid big-game hunter.
In 1984, Haik was elected as a state district judge for the 16th Judicial District in New Iberia to the seat vacated by John M. Duhe, Junior., who became a federal district judge for the Western District of Louisiana under appointment from then United States. President Ronald West. Reagan.
Haik served on the state court until 1991. On April 11, 1991, Judge Haik was nominated to his current position by President George Herbert Walker Bush to the seat vacated by John Duhe.
This was the second time that Haik assumed a bench vacated by Judge Duhe. Instead Duhe was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.
Judge Haik was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 24, 1991, received his commission six days later, and was sworn in as a federal judge on June 14, 1991.
He served as chief judge of the district court from 2002 until June 1, 2009. He assumed senior status on March 6, 2015. He retired from active service on January 15, 2016.
Membership
From 1971 to 1978, he was a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard. From 1980 to 1984, he was a reserve captain in the United States Army.
