Marilyn Ward Ford obtained a B.A. in Economics from Southern Illinois University. She began law school at the University of Iowa Law School and transferred to Rutgers Law School where she was Editor of the Rutgers Law Review .and a Board of Regents Scholar. Her professional career, prior to becoming a law professor, included positions with Legal Services in New York City, Sage, Gray, Todd & Sims, Curtis, Mallet-Prevolt, Colt & Mosle, the New York City Human Rights Commission, and Continental Oil Company.

Ms. Ford is Professor of Law at Quinnipiac University School of Law. She was a Visiting Scholar at Yale Law School, an American Council of Education Fellows at the University of Pennsylvania and has taught at Rutgers Law School.
In addition to directing clinical programs and teaching various law school courses, Ms. Ford has continued to practice law.
She has litigated cases taken through the Law School’s clinic and pro-bono cases for various community organizations and has been lead counsel in several major litigation matters. Her pro-bono litigation has included work for community organizations, senior citizens, Harlem Assertion of Rights, Connecticut Legal Services, and various programs that serve disadvantaged people and at-risk youth. She represented the Eyak Tribe of southeastern Alaska in the effort to save its ancestral land and preserve its heritage, culture, won an award for a retired elderly person who had been wrongfully denied pension benefits, was lead counsel in Mollison v. Societe Nationale Elf Aquitaine and obtained an injunction against a French conglomerate to prevent modification of retirement and health benefits for retirees of Texas Gulf, Inc. and was counsel for a tribe in the Oneida Indian land claim case.

Ms. Ford has served on the board of directors or in various leadership capacities in the following organizations: Connecticut Legal Services, A Better Chance, George Washington Carver Community Center, Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee to the Connecticut Justice Commission, Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, Connecticut Bar Foundation, State of Connecticut Ethics in Government Commission, Connecticut Blue Ribbon Bipartisan Commission on State Tax Revenue and Related Fiscal Policy, the State of Connecticut Banking Commission Advisory Board, and a member of the Connecticut State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Among other community service awards, Ms. Ford has received the Thurgood Marshall Award; she has been honored by the Connecticut Judicial Department for outstanding volunteer work and various chapters of the Links, Inc., and she received the American Association of University Women Award for Outstanding Women.

Ms. Ford was selected as the Omega Psi Phi International Citizen of the year at the 2006 Grand Conclave and was also awarded the President’s Award for lifetime achievement by the Bridgeport Chapter of the NAACP and the Community Service Award by the Urban League of Southern Connecticut, Inc. in 2011.