His father was a Doctor of Laws, his grandfather a master baker in Weiler. Brinz studied in Munich and Berlin and then entered the judicial service of his home state of Bavaria. In Berlin, Professor Adolf August Friedrich Rudorff had encouraged him in the detailed scientific study of Roman law, something which he intensified during his practical work. In 1851 the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg made him an außerordentlicher Professor. From 1854 onwards, he worked there as a full professor for Roman law. In 1857 he took up a similar position at the Charles University in Prague. In Prague, Brinz also became politically active, becoming a member of the Bohemian parliament in 1861 and later taking a seat in the Austrian Reichsrat. In the Bohemian parliament he was a dedicated parliamentary orator and politician and, together with the other leaders of the German party, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst and Leopold Hasner von Artha, resolutely defended German interests. In 1866 he took up a professorship at the University of Tübingen. Here he finished his Textbook of the Pandects. He rejected a mandate to join the parliament of Württemberg, but thereupon the parliament elected him a member of the constitutional court. From 1871 onwards, Alois von Brinz taught Roman civil law at the University of Munich was eventually elected Rector of the university. In 1872 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown and due to the Order's statutes, thus entered the German nobility. In 1883 he was elected an ordinary member of the Class for History of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was a member of the Studentenverbindungen Corps Suevia München and Corps Frankonia Prag Saarbrücken.
Family
Martin Brinz, a baker in Weiler, fought for Austria against Napoleon, as did his seven brothers; was taken away after the war as a hostage.
* Alois Brinz was a Doctor of Laws and later clerk of the regional court in Kempten; married Katharina Gsell, had 10 children.
** Alois Ritter von Brinz married 1857 Caroline Zenetti, daughter of senior civil servant and regional president Johann Baptist Ritter von Zenetti; 6 children
From the same family are descended the well-known politicians Dr. Bernhard Vogel and his brother Dr. Hans-Jochen Vogel.
Literary works
Alois von Brinz composed numerous essays on legal themes. The work Die Lehre von der Kompensation in the area of Roman law earned him much acclaim from the scholars of this field. His main piece of work, the Lehrbuch der Pandekten, was on many occasions described as the most original legal work of the 19th century.
