Carole Ann Spink

Carole Ann Spink is a legal scholar, law professor, and former international employment law partner with more than two decades of experience. She is an Assistant Professor of Law, teaching Contracts, Business Organizations, and Employment Law. Her career includes partnership roles in international law firms, where she led cross-border employment aspects of mergers and acquisitions. She earned a Juris Doctor degree with High Honors and later completed a Master of Science degree in International Relations.

Spink began her higher education by earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1992. During her undergraduate years, she was inducted into an international English honor society and served as an Academic Peer Advisor in an academic department.

She pursued legal education and received her Juris Doctor degree in 1997, graduating with High Honors and ranking ninth in a class of 335 students. Her academic performance led to election to a national legal honor society and recognition as a legal scholar. During law school, she served as a Notes and Comments Editor for a law review and completed a judicial externship in the summer of 1995 with a federal district court judge. In 2003, she earned a Master of Science degree in International Relations.

Her legal career began in Chicago, where Carole Spink worked as a Summer Associate in 1996 and then as an Associate from 1997 to 1999. In 1999, she joined an international law firm, focusing on employment and labor law globally. After a brief period away, she returned in September 2006 and was promoted to Partner in January 2011.

From 2011 to 2019, she served as a Partner and became a leader in a global North American employment and labor law practice. She led transactions involving 50 or more jurisdictions and contributed to firm publications. Carole also remained committed to pro bono work, including leading a collaboration involving 70 lawyers from 11 countries to support women’s legal and economic empowerment, which received a 2010 Corporate Pro Bono Partner Award.

In 2019, she joined another international firm as a Partner in the Employment practice group. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as Co-Chair of a firmwide task force and as the founding author of a pandemic resource center. After more than two decades in private practice, she transitioned to academia in August 2024 as a Visiting Assistant Professor and was appointed Assistant Professor of Law in August 2025. Carole Ann Spink is admitted to practice law in Illinois and Florida and continues to focus on domestic and cross-border employment law matters.