[2] After working as a research scientist, she graduated from Columbia Law School in 1981, where she was a James Kent Scholar and served as articles and book review editor of the Columbia Law Review.

[3] After law school, Dreyfuss was law clerk for Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1982–1983 term.

[4] In 1983 she joined the faculty of New York University School of Law, and in 1988 was named a full professor.

[6][7][8][9] In 1996, she became the director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, and is currently the co-director.

She is co-author of a case book, Intellectual Property-Cases and Materials on Trademark, Copyright and Patent Law, originally published in 1996.