2011 Harpole Awards Presentation

Maryann Yelnosky-Smith and Nellie Barnard were honored this April at the 13th annual Joyce Ann Harpole awards presentation and reception. Oregon Supreme Court Justice Jack L. Landau ‘80 served as the featured speaker at the reception.

Maryann Yelnosky-Smith and Nellie Barnard were honored this April at the 13th annual Joyce Ann Harpole awards presentation and reception. Oregon Supreme Court Justice JackL Landau ‘80 served as the featured speaker at the reception.

Maryann Yelnosky-Smith possesses many of the qualities that made Joyce Harpole such a unique and well regarded person. She is an excellent lawyer who advocates vigorously for her clients but who also strives to resolve matters in fair and reasonable ways. She keeps her balance and sense of humor even in the tense circumstances that practicing lawyers often encounter on a daily basis.

She is a graduate of the University of Oregon, where she earned her Juris Doctor in 1986. She has spent the last 20 years representing Northwest employers and health care providers specializing in litigation defense, including discrimination, employee management, employee training and medical malpractice. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the Multnomah Bar Association, and the Oregon Women Lawyers Society. Her volunteer activities include serving as a Mock Trial Coach with the Classroom Law Project from 1999-2003. She served as a public member of the Board of Psychologist Examiners from 2003-2007. In 2005 she earned a Certificate from the Executive Management Program at the University of Washington Business School. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Oregon School of Law and she also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Committee for the University of Oregon School of Law. She is a frequent speaker on employment law topics. 

Nellie Barnard’s academic insight and hard work has produced excellent results.  She is in the top third of the class and received the Best Oral Advocate award for the First Year Moot Court Competition.  Additionally, she received Honors on her First Year Appellate Brief, and a Pro Bono Honors Award for her first year at law school.  She is a former board member of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, a volunteer for the Public Interest Law Project, and a BarBri Class Representative.  She currently holds three jobs while attending law school – as a law clerk at the Department of Justice, a research assistant for OHSU, and a barista at the on-campus coffee shop, Brewed Awakenings. 

Her accomplishments are many, but her most valuable qualities lie in how she balances the rest of her life with her constant over achievement in her work/school life.  

Each year, the Harpole award is presented to an attorney who is dedicated to the pursuit of justice while maintaining a sense of balance among career, family, and community. Award nominations are received from the community at large. The Harpole scholarship is awarded to a third-year law student who demonstrates a sense of balance between scholarship, fellow students, and personal life. The Joyce Ann Harpole Scholarship is made possible due to the generosity of friends of Joyce Ann Harpole, law firms, and law alumni.