Warren was born and raised in Oklahoma where she was a state champion debater at age 16. She married Jim Warren at age 19, and transferred from George Washington University to the University of Houston, where she graduated with a B.S. in 1970. In 1976 she received her J.D. from Rutgers Law...Newark, where she served as an Editor to the Rutgers Law Review and was one of two female summer associates at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft's Wall Street office. After law school, Warren worked from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings for walk in clients. She divorced Warren in 1978, and later married Bruce Mann.

She joined Harvard Law School in 1992 as the Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. Prior to Harvard, she was the William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law at University of Pennsylvania School of Law and also taught at the University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, University of Michigan and Rutgers Law School.

From 2005-2008, Warren and her law students wrote a blog called Warren Reports, part of Josh Marshall's TPMCafe.

Warren appeared in the documentary film Maxed Out in 2006, has appeared several times on Dr. Phil to talk about money and families, has been a guest on The Daily Show, is interviewed frequently on cable news networks, appears in Michael Moore's A Love Story, and has appeared on the Charlie Rose talk show.

Warren is a member of the FDIC's Committee on Economic Inclusion and the Executive Council of the National Bankruptcy Conference. She is the former Vice-President of the American Law Institute and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as the Chief Adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission.

Warren is married to Bruce Mann, a legal historian and law professor also at Harvard Law School. She has a daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, with whom she has coauthored two books and several articles, and a son, Alexander Warren. She is an ex-Sunday School teacher and cites Methodist John Wesley as an inspiration.

In addition to writing more than 100 scholarly articles and six academic books, Warren has written several best-selling books. Her most recent book, coauthored with her daughter, is All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan.

Warren is also the co-author (with Tyagi) of The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (Basic, 2003) (ISBN 0-465-09082-6). Warren and Tyagi point out that a fully employed worker today earns less inflation-adjusted income than a fully employed worker did 30 years ago. To increase their income, families have sent a second parent into the workforce. Although families spend less today on clothing, appliances, and other consumption, the costs of core expenses like mortgages, health care, transportation, child care, and taxes have increased dramatically. The result is that, even with two income earners, families no longer save and have incurred greater and greater debt.

In an article in the New York Times, Jeff Madrick said of Warren's book:

In an article in Time magazine by Maryanna Murray Buechner, "Parent Trap" (subtitled "Want to go bust? Have a kid. Educate same. Why the middle class never had it so bad"), Buechner said of Warren's book:

In 2005, Dr. David Himmelstein and Warren published a study on bankruptcy and medical bills, which claimed that half of all families filing for bankruptcy did so in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. The finding was particularly noteworthy because 75% of those who fit that description had medical insurance. This study was widely cited, although critics from the insurance industry argued that the criteria used were too loose. In 2007, the team repeated the study, using more robust criteria. They concluded that the proportion of medical bankruptcies had increased to 62% of personal bankruptcies and that, once again, about three-quarters of those families had health insurance at the onset of their medical problems.

On November 14, 2008, Ms. Warren was appointed by United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to chair the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Panel releases monthly oversight reports that evaluate the government bailout and related programs.

The Panel's monthly reports have covered foreclosure mitigation, consumer and small business lending, commercial real estate, AIG, bank stress tests, the impact of TARP on the financial markets, government guarantees, the automotive industry, and many other topics. The Panel has also released special reports on financial regulatory reform and farm loans. For each report, Warren releases a video on the Congressional Oversight Panel's website explaining key findings. All reports and videos are available at cop.senate.gov.

In her role as Chair of the Panel, Warren has testified many times before House and Senate committees on financial issues.

In an interview at Newsweek, December 7, 2009 entitled "Reining in, and Reigning Over, Wall Street" Elizabeth Warren was asked: "Congress is trying to reform financial regulation, and it can get a little abstract. Where should people focus?"

She responded:

To restore some basic sanity to the financial system, we need two central changes: fix broken consumer-credit markets and end guarantees for the big players that threaten our entire economic system. If we get those two key parts right, we can still dial the rest of the regulation up and down as needed. But if we don't get those two right, I think the game is over. I hate to sound alarmist, but that's how I feel about this.

While not officially on the short list of potential nominees to replace retiring US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens , members of the media have speculated on her potential service on the court. In an interview by Tavis Smiley, Warren was asked about serving on the Court and also about heading a potential Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She was complimented by Tavis on her diplomatic answers and she asserted that she has not been asked to serve in either of those capacities. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Warren is the top pick of Democratic leaders in Congress to head the new consumer agency. There have also been calls for her to challenge Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts in the 2012 election.

Warren was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2009 and 2010.

In December 2009, the Boston Globe named Warren the Bostonian of the Year.

The National Law Journal has repeatedly named Professor Warren as one of the fifty most influential female lawyers, and she has been recognized for her work by SmartMoney magazine, Money magazine, and Law Dragon.

In 2009, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts honored her with the Leila J. Robinson Award.

Warren has been recognized for her dynamic teaching style. In 2009, Warren became the first professor in Harvard's history to win the law school's teaching award twice. The Sacks-Freund Teaching Award was voted on by the graduating class in honor of "her teaching ability, openness to student concerns, and contributions to student life at Harvard." Warren also has won awards from her students at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, and the University of Houston Law Center.

On August 13, 2010 a rap video by the Main Street Brigade was put on YouTube in an effort to encourage President Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren as the first director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.