The American Bankruptcy Institute presented Professor Michelle M. Harner of the University of Maryland School of Law with its highest membership award, the ABI Annual Service Award, at the 33rd Annual Spring Meeting on April 17, 2015.

An ABI member since 2003, Harner is the official reporter for the ABI Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11, a three-year study funded by ABI’s Endowment Fund to provide recommendations to Congress on ways to modernize chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In March 2009, Harner also received a research grant from the ABI Endowment Fund to study the role of creditors’ committees in chapter 11 reorganizations.

Harner joined the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law faculty in the fall of 2009. She teaches courses on 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 has also served as associate dean for Academic Programs, Harner served on the faculty of the University of Nebraska College of Law and was voted Professor of the Year by upperclass students during the 2006-07 and 2008-09 academic years.

Harner is a Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy and an elected member of the American Law Institute. In addition, she serves as a member of the Dodd-Frank Study Working Group for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. She was elected to ABI’s board of directors at the Annual Spring Meeting. She is widely published and lectures frequently on various topics involving corporate governance, financially distressed entities and related legal issues. Harner previously was in private practice in the business restructuring, insolvency, bankruptcy and related transactional fields, most recently as a partner in the Chicago office of international law firm Jones Day.

The award is presented to an ABI member whose contributions over the past year have been extraordinary, as determined by ABI’s Advisory Board of past presidents.