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Nathan Yeary
(7th Circuit)
Nathan is another brilliant student who ranked in the top 10% of his class at Illinois College of Law. Nathan participated in the prestigious National Duberstein Bankruptcy
Moot Court Competition and also wrote an article for his law school journal entitled Inherited Troubles: For Seniors, Partially Discharging Student Loan Debt should be as Simple as Michael Scott “Declaring Bankruptcy. Nathan’s article about seniors who have liability for nondischargable student loan debt was published in Illinois Law School’s Elder Law Journal and won third place in the ABI’s annual student writing competition. Nathan played a leadership role in Illinois’ very active Bankruptcy Law Society. He worked in the U.S. Trustee’s office for the Northern District of Illinois from during the summer of 2019 and was a judicial extern for Magistrate Judge Eric Long of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. Nathan is lauded by his three nominating law professors, one of whom was Ralph Brubaker, for his strong work ethic and intelligence, his bankruptcy professors calling him a true bankruptcy superstar and noted that he is easily within the top 5% of all the thousands of students they have ever taught. Nathan is currently clerking for U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath in Delaware. A fun fact about Nathan is that while at Texas A&M for college he studied in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Taylor Ellis
(8th Circuit)
Taylor Ellis attended Arkansas School of Law where she excelled as a student and was the News and Comments Editor for the Arkansas Law Review. She externed for Chief Bankruptcy Judge Ben
Barry and was a research assistant for her bankruptcy professor Timothy Tarvin. Judge Barry wrote the following about Taylor: I have had 39 Law School Externs in the last 13 years and I can unequivocally and honestly state we never had a better extern than Taylor Ellis. Taylor led a team of students that prepared a decision tree called Solving Insolvency which is a guide to consumer bankruptcy lawyers in determining whether their client belongs in chapter 7 and examines items such as eligibility, dischargability, exemptions and self-incrimination. She also assisted Professor Tarvin in the writing of his work in progress book entitled Citizen vs. Sovereign: Recovering in Tort against the Bankruptcy Trustee. Taylor has represented multiple chapter 7 clients through her school’s bankruptcy clinic. Her professor said of her that she was an outstanding student who was always prepared for class. Taylor was awarded the 2020 ABI Medal of Excellence and is currently a staff attorney for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Arkansas and works for Judge Rick Taylor. In her statement as to her choice of bankruptcy law for her career, Taylor noted that she learned only recently that several members of her family who are now financially stable, received a “fresh start” through the bankruptcy process. She says that she has found her niche in bankruptcy. A fun fact about Taylor is that she studied abroad in Russia between her first and second year in law school.