Marie Failinger earned her B.A. (1973) and J.D. (1976) degrees from Valparaiso University in Indiana and taught for a year in its clinical program. After practicing law from 1977-1982 at Legal Services Organization of Indiana, Inc., she received her LL.M. from Yale Law School in 1983. That year, she came to Hamline University School of Law, teaching poverty law, constitutional law, criminal law, property law, family law, and law and religion. Editor of the international Journal of Law and Religion for almost 25 years, she served as associate dean for academic affairs for Hamline from 1990-93, and again from 2008-2010.
Failinger was tapped as interim dean to lead Hamline through the rest of the merger with William Mitchell, and to work with Mitchell to gain approval for the combination from the American Bar Association. Failinger then returned to the faculty of Mitchell Hamline as the Judge Edward J. Devitt Professor of Law, retiring in 2023. She has published books and articles on a range of topics including poverty law and law and religion; and she has served on the boards of the Infinity Project, Minnesota Women Lawyers, Central Minnesota Legal Services, and Church Innovations.