Haynes Maier Studstill was born and raised in Rome, Georgia. She attended Darlington School and graduated high school from the Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana in 1994. She graduated cum laude with a bachelor of science degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville in 1998.

Haynes spent several years as a journalist following college. She worked at WRC-TV (the NBC affiliate station) in Washington, D.C. and WSMV Channel 4 in Nashville, Tennessee, and then went on to become the Life Editor of The Brunswick News in Brunswick, Georgia. This experience in the print industry, combined with her love for riding horses, led her to Fort Worth, Texas where she worked for the Cowboy Publishing Group’s online presence, Horsecity.com, as well as its print publications Quarter Horse News and Barrel Horse News. After several years in the journalism industry, she decided to pursue a legal career.