Joseph Spooner joined the Department of Law at the London School of Economics as an Assistant Professor in September 2013. Joseph teaches on the Property Law,  Commercial Contracts and Insolvency Law undergradaute courses.

Prior to joining the LSE, Joseph worked at UCL Faculty of Laws from September 2010 as a PhD Candidate.  His doctoral research examined how personal insolvency law (in an English and European context) has evolved to respond to modern social and economic conditions of household credit.

Joseph studied law at University College Dublin, Universíté Paris II (Panthéon-Assass), and Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Joseph worked with the Law Reform Commission of Ireland from 2008 to 2010.  Here he held the position of Principal Legal Researcher on the Commission‘s Consultation Paper (September 2009), Interim Report (May 2010) and final Report (December 2010) on Personal Debt Management and Debt Enforcement.

Research Interests
Joseph’s main research interests lie in the law relating to personal indebtedness, with special focus on the comparative analysis of consumer bankruptcy regimes, the regulation of consumer credit markets, and the enforcement of judgment debts.  Further research interests include private international law.

Publications
- "Fresh Start or Stalemate? European Consumer Insolvency Law Reform and the Politics of Household Debt", [2013] 21(3) European Review of Private Law 747-794.
- “Sympathy for the Debtor? The Modernisation of Irish Personal Insolvency Law” [2012] 25(7) Insolvency Intelligence 97.
- "Long Overdue: What the Belated Reform of Irish Personal Insolvency Law tells us about Comparative Consumer Bankruptcy", [2012] 86(2) American Bankruptcy Law Journal 243-304
- “Enforcement of Court Orders (Amendment) Act 2009” in Clark (ed.) Irish Current Law Statutes Annotated 2009 (Thomson Round Hall, 2010).

Conferences
- "The Challenge to Traditional Personal Insolvency law of the Consumer Credit Society". 4th Biennial ECPR Standing Group for Regulatory Governance Conference held in the University of Exeter on 27-29 June 2012.
- "What Difference Does It Make? Political Economy as an Alternative to Social and Cultural Explanations of Differences in National Insolvency Laws” at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting held in Honolulu on 5-8 June 2012.

- "A Comparative Examination of the Contrasting Characterisations of Debtors underpinning National Personal Insolvency Laws", paper presented at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 2-5 June 2011.
- "Little Dorrit or the Artful Dodger? Reconstructing the Consumer Debtor in Ireland’s 'Dickensian' Personal Debt Laws”, paper presented at the Irish Society of Comparative Law Annual Conference, University College Dublin, 29-30 April 2011
- “Long overdue: The Reform of Irish Law as a Case Study of Divergences and Convergences in National Personal Insolvency Laws in the Context of European -‘Bankruptcy Tourism’”, Paper presented at International Insolvency Law Conference, Nottingham Law School Insolvency and Corporate Law Research Group, Nottingham, UK, 15 September 2010.  Available at: http://www.ntu.ac.uk/nls/news_events/insolvency_conference/conference_papers/index.html
- “When Life Hands you a Lemon... Shifting Paradigms in Consumer Credit Regulation and the Accelerated Rise of the Principle of Responsible Lending after the Financial Crisis”, Paper presented at Regulation in the Age of Crisis, Third Biennial Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research Regulatory Governance Standing Group, University College Dublin, 17-19 June 2010.
- “Comparative Personal Insolvency Law and ‘Bankruptcy Tourism’ within the European Judicial Area: from Debtors’ Prison to Debtors’ Paradise via the EC Insolvency Regulation”, Paper presented at the Irish Society of Comparative Law Conference 2010, Queen’s University Belfast, 5-6 March 2010.
- “The Legal Options Available to Irish Defaulters”, Paper presented at Debt Settlements: Financial Inclusion or Exclusion? European Commission Mutual Learning on Financial Inclusion Project Workshop No. 10, Oslo, Norway, 28 September 2009.  Presentation summary available at: http://www.fininc.eu/gallery/documents/w10/4-jspooner-debt-settlements-and-financial-inclusion-28-sep.pdf
- “An Ounce of Prevention, A Pound of Cure: Responsible Lending and a Preventative Legal Approach to Over-Indebtedness”, Paper presented at International Graduate Legal Research Conference 2009, King’s College London, 2-3 July 2009.