Dr Marloes Spreeuw

Marloes Spreeuw joined Westminster Law School on a full-time basis in 2014. Prior to joining Westminster, she held academic positions at King’s College London and Leiden University. Before entering academia, Marloes worked in legal practice at a law firm within the Corporate / M&A practice group and also gained experience in a Law Clinic, grounding her academic work in practical legal experience.

She is a Principal Lecturer in Law and Course Director of the Law School’s flagship LLB programme, one of the largest undergraduate programmes within the University. In this role, she has overseen the programme’s successful implementation and ongoing development, delivering innovative, future-focused legal education and an outstanding student experience—an area which she is deeply passionate about.

A central element of her leadership has been a strong commitment to student partnership. Marloes has introduced a range of initiatives designed to strengthen engagement, enhance feedback, and expand opportunities for student success. These approaches have helped to build a vibrant course community, encourage collaboration across programmes, and strengthen the School’s focus on employability and career development. As a result, the LLB has seen sustained improvements in student satisfaction, continuation, and attainment.

Alongside her course leadership, Marloes serves as Director of Technological Innovation in Legal Education and Practice. In this role, she leads the Law School’s strategic approach to legal technology and generative AI, embedding these developments into curriculum design and co-curricular activities to maximise student employability and ensure the Law School continues to deliver cutting-edge legal education. This includes integrating future-facing legal tech skills into teaching, chairing the LegalTech and GenAI Committee, and building partnerships with industry and professional bodies to enhance the School’s reputation in this rapidly evolving area.

Marloes is also the School’s Careers and Employability Lead. In this capacity, she has introduced and led initiatives to embed careers and employability support successfully within the curriculum, actively involving students in the process. She has also established the Legal Careers, Employability and Professional Development Hub. A key part of this work involves building strong connections with external stakeholders to create enhanced opportunities for law students, including mentoring, careers guidance, internships, work experience, and other professional development opportunities.

In addition, Marloes is Director of the Centre for Legal Education and the Legal Profession. The Centre brings together colleagues researching in areas such as AI and legal education, law in practice, learning and teaching design, access to the legal professions, and identity and professionalism. It runs an online speaker series throughout the academic year featuring leading experts in legal education and the legal profession, organises regular events, and has recently secured approval to host one of the largest conferences in the broader field of the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

Beyond the University, Marloes contributes extensively to the wider legal education community. She has held numerous external examiner roles and served on validation and revalidation panels across institutions both nationally and internationally. She is a writer and reviewer for the QAA and has acted as a consultant for a range of organisations, including government bodies. She is a member of several professional organisations and associations in the fields of legal education, educational technology, and higher education, and is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE. Her commitment to education has been recognised through multiple awards, including Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Outstanding Teacher in Law, Most Inspirational Academic Teacher, and Most Supportive Academic Teacher.

Her research and professional activity align closely with her roles, responsibilities, and passion for legal and higher education more generally. She has presented nationally and internationally on legal education, student experience, digital literacies, and LegalTech and AI, and is a member of a two-year international project examining how technology is reshaping qualification routes to the legal profession.

Marloes’ research interests lie in the fields of legal education, the legal profession, generative AI and LegalTech, and EU law. Her current research focuses on how technological developments are transforming the legal profession, with particular attention to the implications of AI and digital technologies for access, social mobility, and equity within legal education and professional pathways. A key strand of this work explores inclusive and holistic approaches to embedding generative AI within legal education, examining how curricula, assessment, and institutional cultures can respond ethically and effectively to rapid technological change.

She is also actively engaged in international research examining the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), with a specific focus on how contexts, conceptualisations, and incentive structures shape academic engagement with SoTL across jurisdictions. This work contributes to broader debates about educational innovation, academic identity, and the status of teaching-focused scholarship within higher education.

For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.