Marguerite Wolff was an exception among women scholars in Germany in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Although she neither studied formally at any university nor received other scientific training, she built a scientific institute in Berlin. The wife of a lawyer who was an expert in private law and the mother of two sons, she not only herself became an expert in law, but also engaged in research and translation.

Marguerite Jolowicz was born in London on December 10, 1883. We know nothing about her family background or her childhood. She studied English at Newnham College Cambridge and received an MA. In 1906 she married Martin Wolff (1872–1953), who was professor of law at the University of Berlin and an expert in international private law, and she moved to Berlin. They had two sons—Konrad, born in March 1907, and Victor (1911–1944). In Berlin the couple belonged to the city’s intelligentsia.

In 1924, Viktor Bruns (1884–1943), a friend of the family and colleague of Martin, established the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign Public Law and International Law, where Marguerite Wolff held a position from January 1925 until May 1933, first as unofficial co-director and later as a research scholar. Together with Bruns, she expanded the institute, her interests being legal problems in England and North America. She also translated publications on English and American law. Marguerite Wolff later became an assistant and librarian of the institute, publishing several articles on legal problems. Martin Wolff was highly esteemed both at the university and at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society; in 1926 he became a member of the advisory board of a second Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) for Foreign Private and International Private Law. While her husband was considered by his colleagues to be an important scholar, Marguerite Wolff’s work received less acknowledgement.

In Berlin Wolff published two books. The first. in 1928, focused on British law relating to the media. The second, in 1933, was a textbook for car drivers and truck drivers; it was republished in 1934 but with an "Aryan" author.

In April 1933, with the accession to power of the Nazi party, Marguerite Wolff was immediately dismissed. In 1935, she returned to Great Britain, where her son Victor had been living since 1933. Konrad emigrated in October 1933 first to France and, in 1941, to the United States. Martin Wolff, who had been under attack by Nazi students from 1933 on, was dismissed in 1935. He decided to emigrate to Great Britain only in September 1938. At Oxford University he was awarded several fellowships to continue his important work on comparative international private law. The prefaces to his publications typically underestimate the help given him by his wife and colleague.

During World War II, Wolff worked for the BBC news. Following the war, she served as an interpreter for the British delegation (or representatives) at the Nuremberg Trials.

Although Marguerite Wolff was unable to continue her scholarly work after leaving Germany, she did continue to deal with legal issues, translating works in this area. She helped her husband write his book "Private Law in Great Britain" (published in 1945, 1950) and translated his work "Private International Law." She also translated Fritz Schultz’s “Principles of Roman Law” into English (published in 1934) and F.A. Mann’s “Legal Aspect of Money” into German. Later she also translated lectures given by German scientists in the United Kingdom, including a lecture given in London in 1956 by Otto Hahn (1878–1968), then president of the Max Planck Society, the successor to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.

Marguerite Wolff died in London (Hampstead) on May 21, 1964.