Professor D.O. Malagrinò joined the faculty of the Charleston School of Law in 2017, after ten years of full-time law teaching.  Professor Malagrinò teaches Property I & II, Land Use, and Wills, Trusts & Estates, among other courses.  Professor Malagrinò is licensed to practice law in the state courts of California and in the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Central Districts of California.

Legal Education

Professor Malagrinò is law graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law and of the London School of Economics and Political Science.  In addition to the Charleston School of Law, Professor Malagrinò has had full-time, law faculty appointments at the University of California at Davis, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, among other schools.   He has taught Property, Sports Law, Land Use, Wills, Trusts & Estates, Real Estate Development & Zoning, Eminent Domain & Takings, Antitrust, Negotiations, Entertainment Law, Criminal Procedure, Legal Anthropology, and Torts.  Professor Malagrinò has been honored as the Professor of the Year multiple times.

Work Experience

Prior to academia, Professor Malagrinò spent six years in private practice as an attorney in San Diego, specializing in complex civil litigation including securities fraud and antitrust class actions.  During that time, he prosecuted large class action lawsuits.

In San Diego, Professor Malagrinò practiced persuasive law and motion writing and provided legal theory, analysis, and strategy for the purpose of litigation and appellate arguments.  Selected career highlights include: Prosecuting and successfully settling on behalf of class clients In re Electronic Data Systems Corporation Securities Litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas; prosecuting and successfully trying United National Maintenance, Inc. v. San Diego Convention Center Corporation, Inc. (Antitrust) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California; and, managing intensive corporate client audits evaluating compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, and conducting in-depth analyses of historical stock option practices and advising corporate clients accordingly.

Professor Malagrinò also testified at congressional hearings on behalf of the National Collegiate Athletics Association as an expert in prospective and collegiate student-athlete welfare.  And, more recently, Professor Malagrinò was a Senior Attorney at a Texas-based Energy Resources law firm, where he provided counsel for the firm’s Real Property and Corporate law groups.

Professor Malagrinò is a passionate Property law instructor and a trained legal anthropologist.  He values cross-disciplinary and comparative legal analysis, and integrates grass-roots research and broad theoretical ideas into practical, problem-solving uses.

Professor Malagrinò is also a Sports Law expert in prospective and collegiate student-athlete welfare.  Professor Malagrinò earned his undergraduate degree in Economics, International Relations, and Italian Language, Literature & Culture at Syracuse University, where he was an NCAA Division-1 varsity athlete in two sports (swimming and track), captaining the men’s swimming team.

Professor Malagrinò researches and writes in the areas of property law, comparative property law, law and anthropology, and sports law.  His casebook, Land Use and Zoning Law 2e (Carolina Academic Press 2022) (with Robin Paul Malloy) comprehensively integrates issues of accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Land Use and Zoning Laws, addressing the complexities of aging in place and of disability in the context of local land regulation.

His recent law review articles have explored private versus common law property regimes, arguing that greater use of common property approaches (such as use of land trusts) could lessen social exclusion from the right to property by making housing more affordable; have analyzed the different lenses through which law and anthropology view significant legal change; have critiqued—and offered modifications to—the NCAA’s current enforcement and sanctioning processes; have explored and offered amendments to federal law relating to state regulation of sports-betting industries; and, have advocated for more student-athlete opportunities in collegiate athletics.  In media and journalism forums, he regularly publishes on housing issues, and on sports and the law.

Professor Malagrinò notes: “Often students comment on how demanding, confusing, or hard law school can be at times.  I try to remind them, ‘Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean you can’t be great at it.’”

Selected Achievements

Ten-time Professor of the Year recipient, including 2020–21.

2021 recipient of the Order of the Silver Crescent by Governor Henry McMaster—the Order of the Silver Crescent is South Carolina’s highest civilian award for significant contributions, leadership, volunteerism, and lifelong influence within a region or community—awarded for contributions to legal education.

Advisory Board to the Journal of Law, Business & Ethics, faculty peer reviewer.