Faculty & Administration View All

Margaret F. Brinig

Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law

Office Number: 3157 Eck Hall of Law
Telephone: 574.631.2303
Fax: 574.631.4197
Email: Margaret.Brinig.1@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Leslie Berg

Margaret “Peg” Brinig is the quintessential interdisciplinarian, melding her expertise with law and social science in empirical studies of families, social capital, and social welfare legislation.

Prof. Brinig is best known for her expertise in family law. She sits on the executive council of the International Society of Family Law, and recently published Family, Law, and Community: Supporting the Covenant (University of Chicago Press, 2010), which offers a distinctive study of legal reform from the perspective of family dynamics and social policy. The book examines a range of subjects of current legal interest including cohabitation, custody, grandparent visitation, and domestic violence. She concludes that conventional legal systems and the social programs they engender ignore social capital: the trust and support given to families by a community.

Currently, Prof. Brinig is collaborating with another colleague, Dan Kelly, on a new Law, Economics, and Business seminar (beginning fall 2010). The seminar will feature speakers from within Notre Dame’s law school, economics department, business school, and other departments, as well as speakers from other law schools and universities. Law students and graduate students from other departments will have the opportunity to read, discuss, and comment upon seminal scholarship by leading academics while earning course credit for participating in the seminar.

At the University of Notre Dame, Prof. Brinig is a Fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at Notre Dame, and works closely with the Institute’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Program. She continues to conduct groundbreaking research with colleague Nicole Garnett on the negative impact of Catholic K-12 school closures on poor neighborhoods.

Prof. Brinig has been honored for her work at a Notre Dame football game, and won the Distinguished Professor Award at George Mason University. She is a member of the American Law Institute.

In the News

LAW60105, Contracts

LAW70503, Family Law

LAW73145, Law and Economics

LAW75717, Alternative Dispute Resolution

Insurance

Faculty Expertise Areas

Teaching Interests:
Contracts
Dispute Resolution
Family Law
Insurance
Law & Economics

Research Interests:
Catholic Schools
Contracts
Dispute Resolution
Economics of the Family
Family Law
Family and Social Policy
Law and Economics
Public Choice
Social Capital
Social Norms

Books

Family, Law, and Community (U. Chi. Press 2010).

Margaret F. Brinig, ed. The Economics of Family Law (2 vol.), part of the Economics of Law Series, gen. ed. Richard A. Posner and Francesco Parisi, Edward Elgar, 2007); also wrote introduction to the family law series

Carl E. Schneider and Margaret F. Brinig, An Invitation to Family Law: Process, Problems and Possibilities (Third Edition) (West Publishing Company, 2006); Teacher’s Manual, 2007

Margaret F. Brinig, From Contract to Covenant: Beyond the Law and Economics of the Family (Harvard University Press, 2000)

Carl E. Schneider and Margaret F. Brinig, An Invitation to Family Law: Process, Problems and Possibilities (Second Edition) (West Publishing Company, 2000); Teacher’s Manual, 2001

Margaret F. Brinig, Carl E. Schneider and Lee H. Teitelbaum, Family Law in Action (Anderson Publishing, 1999)

Articles

Child Support Guidelines: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 45 FAM. L.Q. 135 (2011) (with Douglas W. Allen).

Do Joint Parenting Laws Make Any Difference? 8 Journal of Law and Empirical Studies 304-24 (2011) (with Douglas W. Allen).

Catholic Schools, Urban Neighborhoods, and Education Reform, 85 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 887 (2010) (with Nicole Garnett)

The One-Size-Fits-All Family, with Steven L. Nock, 49 Santa Clara L. Rev. 137 (2009).

Children’s Beliefs and Family Law, 58 Emory L.J. 55 (2008).

The Public Choice of Driving Competence Regulations, 21 NOTRE DAME J.L. ETHICS & PUB. POL’Y 405-40 (2007).

Are All Contracts Alike?, 43 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 533-57 (2008).

From Family to Individual and Back Again, 51 HOWARD L.J. 1 – 14 (2007).

Penalty Defaults in Family Law: The Case of Child Custody Default Rules in Private and Public Law: Extending Default Rules Beyond Purely Economic Relationships, 33 Florida State University Law Review 779-824 (2006).

Margaret Brinig, Gerald Jogerst, Jeanette Daly, Jeffrey Dawson and Gretchen Schmuch, Lawmaking by Public Welfare Professionals, 5 Whittier Journal of Child & Family Advocacy 57 (2006)

Gerald G. Jogerst , Jeanette M. Daly, Margaret F. Brinig & Stephanos Bibas., “The Association Between Statutory Penalties and Domestic Elder Abuse Investigations,”28 Journal of Crime and Justice 51 (2006)

Margaret F. Brinig, Does Parental Autonomy Require Equal Custody at Divorce? , 65 Louisiana Law Review 1345 (2005)

Margaret F. Brinig, Unhappy Contracts: The Case of Divorce, 1 Review of Law and Economics 241 (2005)

Gerald J. Jogerst et al., APS Investigative Systems Associated with Country Reported Domestic Elder Abuse, 16 Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect 1 (2004)

Margaret F. Brinig & Steven L. Nock, Marry Me, Bill: Should Cohabitation be the (Legal) Default Option? 64 Louisiana Law Review 403 (2004).

Margaret F. Brinig, Gerald J. Jogerst, Jeanette M. Daly, Gretchen A. Schmuch, and Jeffrey Dawson, The Public Choice of Elder Abuse Law, 33 Journal of Legal Studies 517 (2004).

Margaret F. Brinig, The Role of Socioeconomics in Teaching Family Law, 41 San Diego Law Review 177(2004).