Alina Habba

Alina Saad Habba (born March 25, 1984) is an American lawyer and Managing Partner of Habba, Madaio & Associates LLP, a firm based in Bedminster, New Jersey, with an office in New York City. Habba is currently representing former US president Donald Trump, and is also a senior advisor for MAGA, Inc., Trump's Super PAC.

Habba attended Lehigh University, graduating in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in political science.

Between 2005 and 2007, Habba worked in the fashion industry in accessories production and marketing with executives at Marc Jacobs. According to her, though she enjoyed the fashion industry, she decided to attend law school for financial reasons. She obtained a Juris Doctor from the Widener University Commonwealth Law School in 2010.

After finishing law school, Habba served as a law clerk to Eugene J. Codey Jr., then Presiding Judge of the Civil Superior Court in Essex County, New Jersey from September 2010 until September 2011. Habba began private practice in September 2011, when she joined as an associate at Tompkins, McGuire, Wachenfeld & Barry, LLP, where she worked from September 2011 to February 2013. From February 2013 to March 2020, she was an equity partner and the Managing Partner of Sandelands Eyet LLP, a seven-attorney firm formed by her then-husband in 2013.

In March 2020 she left to start her own firm. The firm, Habba, Madaio and Associates LLP, employs five people. Along with the firm's Bedminster, New Jersey office, Habba has an office in Manhattan.

In July 2021, Habba represented Siggy Flicker, a Trump-supporting former member of The Real Housewives of New Jersey who alleged that Facebook had disabled her account for wishing Melania Trump a happy birthday. Habba wrote a letter to Facebook, which Facebook appeared to ignore.

In July 2021, Habba represented Caesar DePaço, a vitamin supplement entrepreneur, in a federal court case where she filed a lawsuit against Portuguese journalists for revealing his close connections to the far-right Chega party in Portugal.

In 2019, Habba joined the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, an eight-minute drive from her law firm. There, she and Donald Trump got acquainted. In a lawsuit filed in December 2023 aimed at referring Habba to the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics, a Trump National Golf Club Bedminster employee alleged that in the second half of 2021, Habba induced the employee into entering an illegal non-disclosure agreement when the employee intended to accuse a club manager of workplace sexual misconduct (New Jersey banned non-disclosure agreements for workplace harassment). The employee alleges that Habba tried to befriend her, encouraged the firing of the employee's lawyer, provided the non-disclosure agreement with penalties for disclosure, and warned the employee not to publicize the workplace sexual misconduct accusation; Habba responded in 2023: "I always conduct myself ethically and acted no differently in this circumstance.".

Habba had never done legal work for Trump when, in September 2021, he hired her as part of his legal team, replacing several well-established lawyers who had worked for Trump for many years but had withdrawn their services, including: Marc Kasowitz, Charles Harder, Joanna Hendon, Marc Saroff Mukasey, Jay Sekulow, and Lawrence S. Rosen.

Quickly after her hiring, Habba made headlines by filing a $100 million lawsuit on Trump's behalf against the New York Times, three Times reporters, and Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump. Her lawsuit was dismissed by the judge for "fail[ing] as a matter of constitutional law".

Habba also worked on Trump's behalf when he was sued for defamation by Summer Zervos. Trump had called Zervos a "liar" in 2017, after she accused him of kissing her and groping her, without her consent, when she was a contestant on Trump's reality TV show, The Apprentice. In October 2021, Habba filed a Trump countersuit against Zervos, claiming she was trying to stifle Trump's right to free speech. Shortly thereafter, in November 2021, Zervos discontinued the lawsuit.

On July 19, 2022, Habba was sued by a former employee Na'Syia Drayton who claimed Habba repeatedly sang inappropriate gangster rap and hip hop music in the office while using the N word, made racist comments, and referred to New York's attorney general Letitia James as '"that Black bitch." The lawsuit was settled out of court in September 2022. Habba had called James a "sick person" in January of the same year.

In recent years, Habba is representing Trump in cases with E. Jean Carroll concerning Carroll's accusation that Trump sexually assaulted her in early 1996. Coverage of her actions in court have shown the colored lights of her gaming laptop active during court, and trying to use evidence in court without following proper procedure and calling Caroll an "old hag" while quoting tweets.