Stephanie Harlien

Biography

Stephanie Harlien serves as Director of Pro Bono Programs at the St. Mary’s University School of Law’s Center for Legal and Social Justice. She is a first-generation college graduate from Corpus Christi, Texas, a St. Mary’s Law alumna, and has demonstrated a passion for public service in every step of her career.

As the Director of Pro Bono Programs, Stephanie oversees the implementation of the service graduation requirement for JD students at St. Mary’s Law. Through the development of multiple community-centered collaborations, the Pro Bono Program has connected law student volunteers with opportunities to meet the law-related needs of the San Antonio community.

As the supervising attorney for the Identification Recovery Program, Stephanie oversees a law student-powered outreach effort at Haven for Hope, San Antonio’s largest homeless services provider.

Prior to joining St. Mary’s, Stephanie was a legal aid attorney and the director of the Legal Aid for Survivors of Sexual Assault (LASSA) Project with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she primarily represented survivors of domestic and sexual violence in divorce, custody, and protective order cases, but also represented clients in education cases from elementary school to college and transgender and nonbinary clients in name and gender marker corrections. She was also the shelter attorney for The Purple Door, the Coastal Bend’s domestic violence shelter, taking direct referrals regarding clients in shelter or receiving shelter services who needed legal assistance, and represented the shelter and staff to quash subpoenas or find alternatives to protect survivor privacy.

She received undergraduate degrees in mathematics and biomedical science and a master’s degree in counseling from Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. She received her law degree from St. Mary’s where she was a student coordinator for the Pro Bono Program and a student attorney with the Civil Justice Clinic.

• 2020 Top Attorneys: Rising Star, The Bend Magazine, 2020
• St. Mary’s Presidential Award, St. Mary’s University, 2018
• Excellence in Pro Bono Award, St. Mary’s University, 2018
• Alice Wright Franzke Feminist Award, St. Mary’s University, 2017
• Marianist Green Award for Community Spirit and Cooperation, Center for Legal and Social Justice, 2017

Articles in a Periodical

• “Pro Bono Proves Powerful in Career Hunt,” TYLA eNews, Feb. 2017 (with Ayssa Palacios and Brooke Holland)

Presentations

• “Identification Recovery,” San Antonio Paralegal Association CLE, Jan. 2023, San Antonio, TX
• “Rolling into Court with the Squad: A Trauma-Informed and Holistic Approach for Survivor Resiliency,” Poverty Law Conference, Aug. 2022, Austin, TX
• “What Every Poverty Lawyer Should Know About Sexual Violence,” Poverty Law Conference, Sept. 2021, Austin, TX
• “Protective Order Bootcamp 2021,” Nueces and San Patricio County Attorney’s Offices CLE, May 2021, Corpus Christi, TX
• “The Interplay of Guardianship Reform and Working with Survivors of Sexual Violence,” Texas Association Against Sexual Assault Conference, Jul. 2020, Austin, TX