Michelle Harner joined the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law faculty in the fall of 2009. She teaches courses in Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights, Business Associations, Business Planning, Corporate Finance and Professional Responsibility. Prior to joining the faculty at UM Carey Law School, where she also has served as Associate Dean for Academic Programs, Professor Harner served on the faculty of the University of Nebraska College 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 corporate governance, financially distressed entities and related legal issues. Her publications appear or are forthcoming in the Vanderbilt Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Fordham Law Review (reprinted in Corporate Practice Commentator), Arizona Law Review (reprinted in Corporate Practice Commentator), Florida Law Review, Washington & Lee Law Review, among others. She also has published or will be publishing articles in specialty law reviews at the Moritz College of Law (The Ohio State University), Rutgers School of Law, St. John’s University School of Law, University of Miami School of Law, University of Tennessee College of Law and UM Carey Law School.
Professor Harner’s scholarship has been cited by numerous courts, including the United States Courts of Appeal for the First, Third, Fifth and Ninth Circuits and the United States District Courts for the Districts of Massachusetts and Nevada. Professor Harner’s current research interests include shareholder and creditor activism and its impact on enterprise 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.
Professor Harner currently is serving as the Reporter to the ABI Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11. In addition, in March 2009 and April 2012, Professor Harner received research grants from the American Bankruptcy Institute Endowment Fund to study the role of creditors’ committees in chapter 11 business bankruptcies and potential reforms to chapter 11, respectively. She also serves as a member of the Dodd-Frank Study Working Group for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts
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, she served as law clerk to Judge William T. Bodoh of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Professor Harner is admitted to practice law in Illinois and Ohio.
