Margit (Maggie) Livingston teaches and writes in the areas of intellectual property, commercial law and animal law. Her articles have appeared in the primary law reviews of North Carolina, Iowa, Fordham, William & Mary, Washington, Nebraska, and Boston College, among others. Her scholarship has focused on topics such as the legal regulation of animal cruelty, the valuation of animals for tort purposes, the notice-giving function of the public filing system in secured lending transactions, copyright protection for stage directions, and copyright infringement in music cases.
She has acted as the Director of the DePaul Center for Animal Law since 2002. The Center has hosted educational programs for attorneys, law students, and the public on legal issues related to animals in entertainment, animals as food, animal hoarding, dog fighting, and puppy mills. Most recently, she has served as Associate Dean for Faculty Development in the College of Law and Director of the DePaul Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology (CIPLIT®). She has been Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law; Fordham University School of Law; and Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William and Mary.
She has won numerous awards for her teaching, scholarship and service, including the DePaul University Excellence in Teaching Award in 2008, the DePaul College of Law Faculty Achievement Award in 2010, and the DePaul University Spirit of Inquiry Award in 2014. She is a graduate of the renowned Second City Conservatory for Improvisational Comedy and recently studied advanced acting for several years at HB Studio in New York. She holds a JD and an MA in Theatre Arts from the University of Minnesota and an LLM from the University of Illinois.