Justice Małgorzata Pyziak-Szafnicka was born on 23 June 1955 in Łódź. She graduated, summa cum laude, from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Łódź in 1978. Judge Pyziak-Szafnicka earned her juris doctor degree in 1987, a habilitated doctor's degree in legal science in 1995, and in 2003 she was awarded the title of a professor in legal science. Both her habilitation thesis "Debt clearance" and professor's thesis "Deduction in civil law" won awards of the Minister of National Education. In 2006 she earned a title of an ordinary professor.

In 1980 she passed a judicial exam upon the completion of a two-years' judicial training at the Voivodeship Court in Łódź. In 1988, having completed a three-level course in comparative law at the International Faculty of Comparative Law in Strasbourg, judge Pyziak-Szafnicka obtained a Diplôme Supérieur de Droit Comparé. As a DAAD scholarship holder, in 1992 she served a three-months' research internship in Giessen.

She commenced her professional career at the Chair of Civil Law of the University of Łódź's Faculty of Law and Administration where she is a faculty member until today. Since 1997 she has been head of the Department of Civil Law. She was thrice Vice Dean, and since 2008 she has been Dean of the University of Łódź's Faculty of Law and Administration. In 2003, in cooperation with French law professors, she opened a "School of French Law" at the University of Łódź's Faculty of Law and Administration, upon whose completion graduates obtain a university diploma in French law. She was lecturer at the faculties of law in Nantes (1995) and in Grenoble (2000, 2005).

From 1994 to 1998 she served as legal adviser of the President of the City of Łódź. Between 1998-2006 she worked at the Constitutional Tribunal as a judge's assistant. Since 2000 she has held the position of Chairman of the Polish Section of the Commission Internationale de l'Etat Civil, an international organisation based in Strasbourg. From 2006 to 2010 she was member of the Civil Law Codification Commission acting under the Minister of Justice.

She is currently member of the Łódź Scientific Society, the Association Henri Capitant des Amis de la Culture Juridique Française, and the Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé.

In 2010 she received a honoris causa doctorate from the Université François Rabelais in Tours. She has been awarded the Silver Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the Medal of the National Education Commission, and the Government of the Republic of France has bestowed upon judge Pyziak-Szachnicka the title of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques.

Justice Pyziak-Szafnicka is the author of over 70 publications on civil law, including extensive fragments of the System of Private Law and the Commentary on the Civil Code's general part.

In January 2011 the Sejm of the Republic of Poland appointed her Justice of the Constitutional Tribunal.