Jennifer Spreng | SIU

Jennifer Spreng joined the faculty of Southern Illinois School of Law in 2022.  She has designed and taught numerous innovative doctrinal, writing, simulation, academic support, bar preparation, and integrated courses, often in experimental formats and notable for their authentic anchoring scenarios and extensive formative assessment.  Spreng regularly publishes and lectures both here and abroad about authentic learning, integrated course design, legal writing, and other law teaching and curriculum issues.

Professor Spreng was previously Associate Professor of Law and taught Bankruptcy, Civil Procedure, and Constitutional Law for nine years at Arizona Summit Law School, where she led cutting-edge curriculum development efforts, designed and delivered integrated courses, and regularly created innovative classroom activities and teaching materials, such as The Great Civil Procedure Shootout.  She also designed and taught first-year and upper-class writing courses as one of the original faculty of the Law Success program at Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas for more than five years.

Professor Spreng earned her Bachelor of Arts with honors in American history from Washington and Lee University (magna cum laude) in 1990; her J.D. from Saint Louis University (magna cum laude) in 1995, where she was Lead Articles Editor of Saint Louis University Law Journal, which published her comment, Failing Honorably:  Balancing Tests, Justice O’Connor, and the Free Exercise of Religion; and her LL.M in Biotechnology and Genomics from Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in 2014.

Professor Spreng is the author of the book, Abortion and Divorce Law in Ireland, and her articles about school desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia, and possible Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reorganization are leaders in their fields.  She won Arizona Summit’s 2013-14 Faculty Scholarship Award, and along with law teaching, her current scholarly interests include religious and other individual liberties, and food, drug, and pharmacy law.

Professor Spreng is a former clerk to Judges Andrew J. Kleinfeld of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and F. A. Little Jr. of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.  She practiced bankruptcy and civil litigation in Owensboro, Kentucky for nine years, and before law school, she served as a United States Congressional staff member providing research support for a welfare reform project that formed the foundation for the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996.