Michael Boudin is a Judge and former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.  

Boudin was born in New York City, in 1939 the son of the civil liberties attorney Leonard Boudin and older brother of Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin. He received a B.A. from Harvard University and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1964. He was a law clerk for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1964 to 1965, and then clerked for Justice John Marshall Harlan II of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1966.

From 1966 to 1987 Boudin practiced regulatory law at Covington and Burling, a Washington D.C. law firm. He spent 21 years at Covington & Burling, primarily drafting appellate briefs in complex regulatory matters for corporate clients.

Boudin worked as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School from 1982 to 1983, and then as a lecturer there from 1983 to 1998. He then served in President Reagan's Justice Department as a deputy assistant U.S. Attorney General of the Antitrust Division from 1987 to 1990.

On May 18, 1990, President George H.W. Bush nominated Boudin to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, to a seat vacated by John H. Pratt. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 3, 1990, and received commission on August 7. Less than two years later, on January 31, 1992, he resigned to return to Massachusetts. Two months later, on March 20, President Bush nominated Boudin to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, to a seat vacated by Levin Hicks Campbell. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 21, 1992, and received commission on May 26. He served as chief judge on that court from 2001 to 2008.