About Stephen S.
Stephen S. Sanders trained at two well-regarded Midwestern schools. He earned an A.B. from Indiana University Bloomington before taking his law degree at the University of Michigan Law School, where he received a J.D. in 2005. The early sequence of his career moved quickly from the classroom to the courthouse.
Fresh out of law school, Sanders clerked for the Hon. Terence T. Evans on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. That clerkship, completed in 2005, placed him at the heart of federal appellate work and shaped the litigation trajectory that followed. He entered private practice in 2006, joining Mayer Brown LLP as a lawyer in the firm’s Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation group. There he worked on high-level appeals and matters destined for the nation’s highest courts.
Sanders shifted into teaching and scholarship in the years after his stint in private practice. In 2011 he held visiting and lecturer positions at two law schools: a Visiting Assistant Professorship at the University of Michigan Law School and a Lectureship in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Those appointments allowed him to move between practice and pedagogy, teaching students while maintaining an active interest in appellate advocacy.
He returned to Indiana in 2019 to join the faculty at Indiana University Maurer School of Law as a Professor of Law. His academic career reflects the same appellate orientation that marked his early practice. He has balanced classroom responsibilities with work on appellate matters, and he has guided law students through the mechanics of brief writing, oral argument and judicial decisionmaking. His experience in both large-firm appellate litigation and federal clerkship provides a practical backdrop for his teaching.
Sanders is admitted to practice in Illinois and has held membership in the Illinois State Bar since 2006. That bar credential ties his professional standing to the jurisdiction where much of his litigation work and teaching are centered. Colleagues and students alike encounter a faculty member who moves comfortably between theory and the practical demands of appellate work.
He currently serves on the faculty at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where his work centers on appellate litigation and legal education.
