Short on studying, Harvard Law School Jeopardy! contestant wins nearly $138,000 - The Boston Globe (2025)

In an April 9 post on Instagram, Harvard Law School wished the soon-to-be graduate luck hours before his first episode aired on NBC.

“Be sure to tune in TONIGHT as Harvard Law student Andrew Hayes ’25 makes an appearance on Jeopardy! Good luck Andrew, we’re rooting for you,” the school posted.

The big victory comes after Hayes was hardly able to study for his first Jeopardy! taping in late February, the third-year Harvard Law School student said. Classes kept him busy with homework, and studying legal texts prevented him from attending weekly trivia nights at a student pub in Cambridge, he said.

The biggest distraction came when Hayes’ wife, Kaitlyn MacNair-Hayes, learned of a surprise pregnancy in early January, he said.

“Studying for Jeopardy! fell on my priority list a good deal,” said Hayes, who plans to spend some of the prize money on his baby’s nursery room.

Before his six-episode Jeopardy! run, the peak of Haye’s trivia career came at age 10, when he won “Bible Drill” at Tupelo’s Calvary Baptist Church, he said.

Competition, which “was a little like quiz bowl,” included memorizing Bible facts and reciting lengthy passages from memory, he said.

“I was really a stand-out in this very small world,” Hayes said, with a laugh.

He twice won the top prize in Mississippi’s statewide Bible Drill competition, earning a certificate, but no prize money.

“Not a very lucrative circuit,” Hayes said.

Hayes said the experience, along with many casserole-fueled trivia television nights at Aunt Tommie’s, taught him to remain calm in front of audiences and not to linger over missed questions.

To this day, Hayes said, his favorite trivia category is “anything having to do with the Bible.”

Since entering Harvard Law School, Hayes has not once participated in trivia night at a Boston or Cambridge bar, he said. That streak will be broken on Wednesday, April 23, when Hayes will be the guest of honor at the Harvard Law School Pub weekly trivia night, starting at 7 p.m.

In November 2023, Hayes and his wife Kaitlyn, 27, were given “devastating” news they’d never have children due to medical issues, he said.

But in December 2024 ‐ roughly the same time he got invited to film Jeopardy! ‐ the couple believes they conceived, Hayes said, given how Kaitlyn confirmed she was pregnant in early January 2025.

The shocking pregnancy news less than two months before taping threw Hayes’ “ambitious” study checklist off track, he said. Instead of giving himself a last-minute crash course in his worst categories, which he said include Shakespeare and baseball, Hayes began planning with his wife for their new child’s arrival.

“I told my wife before going on the show that I was trying to have a good attitude, and recognize that most people who go on the show lose,” Hayes said.

But he won the first episode and kept on winning, getting lucky with categories including foreign words and phrases, Quentin Tarantino films, geography, American history and chemistry, Hayes said. Another category in which he pulled ahead was “Oops, I Accidentally Took the Spanish Crossword!”

The soon-to-be law school graduate will be celebrating a lot in the next year, including a clerkship with Judge Cory Wilson at the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Jackson, Miss. Oh, and potentially a Caribbean vacation after the clerkship ends in the summer of 2026.

“That’d be a nice, non-utilitarian use for some of the money,” Hayes said, adding it will likely be an adult-only trip coinciding with his future child’s first birthday.

Hayes’ six wins were one more than needed to qualify for Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champions, an annual tournament featuring people who’ve won the most regular episodes, which Hayes said will likely be filmed in January 2026.

“I didn’t expect to win one, winning more than that was just icing on the cake,” he said.

Claire Thornton can be reached at claire.thornton@globe.com. Follow Claire on X @claire_thornto.