Michelle Harner joined the University of Maryland faculty as an Associate Professor of Law in the fall of 2009.  She teaches courses in Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights, Business Associations, Corporate Finance and Governance and Professional Responsibility.  Professor Harner comes to the law school from the University of Nebraska College of Law, where she served as an Assistant Professor of Law and was voted “Professor of the Year” by the upperclass students during the 2006‑07 and 2008-09 academic years.

Professor Harner is widely published and lectures frequently on various topics involving financially distressed entities and related legal issues. Her most recent publications include: Corporate Control and the Need for Meaningful Board Accountability, 94 Minn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2010); Ignoring the Writing on the Wall: The Role of Enterprise Risk Management in the Economic Crisis, 5 J. Bus. Tech. L. (forthcoming 2010) (symposium piece); The Corporate Governance and Public Policy Implications of Activist Distressed Debt Investing, 77 Fordham L. Rev. 703 (2008), reprinted in 51 Corporate Practice Commentator 177 (2009); and Trends in Distressed Debt Investing: An Empirical Study of Investors' Objectives, 16 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 69 (2008) (solicited piece). Professor Harner's current research interests include shareholder and creditor activism and its impact on corporate value; legislative responses to serial business failures and related implications for discrete industries; and the ethical implications of insolvency for directors, officers and other fiduciaries. In addition, in March 2009, Professor Harner received a research grant from the American Bankruptcy Institute Endowment Fund to study the role of creditors' committees in chapter 11 business bankruptcies.

Professor Harner previously was in private practice in the business restructuring, insolvency, bankruptcy and related transactional fields, most recently as a partner at the Chicago office of the international law firm Jones Day.  Before joining that firm in 1996, Professor Harner served as law clerk to Judge William T. Bodoh of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio.  Professor Harner attended the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University (J.D. 1995), where she served as Executive Editor of the Ohio State Law Journal and also was a member of the Order of the Coif.  She earned her undergraduate degree at Boston College (B.A. 1992, English and Political Science), and she is admitted to practice law in Illinois and Ohio.

Professor Harner is a member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Bankruptcy Institute, the American Bar Association and the International Association of Restructuring, Insolvency & Bankruptcy Professionals.