He completed his law studies in 1927 and launched a career as an academic and historian. In 1925, as chair of Public International Law, he presented his first historical legal study – mentioned above – specifically dedicated to the memory of António Sardinha. Analysis of a legal problem set in a historical context would become a significant part of his future publications. After completing the law degree, Marcelo Caetano devoted himself to a PhD, and presented a thesis that was unique among his publications: A depreciação da Moeda depois da Guerra (Currency Depreciation After the War, 1931). He thus became the first Doctor of Political and Economic Sciences from the Law School of the University of Lisbon. This economically and financially-based study is not, however, unusual. The social sciences and economic and financial viewpoints had great influence in the Faculties of Law at that time. As legal auditor of the Minister of Finance since 1929, he collaborated on the drafting of the Constitution of 1933. It was an important year for Marcelo Caetano, who also took and passed the examinations for the position of professor at the Law School.

During the 1930s, he dedicated himself to his academic career and the doctrine of corporatism, publishing the textbook Lições de Direito Corporativo (Lessons in Corporate Law, 1935). It should be noted that in this book, Marcelo Caetano states that a corporate state did not truly exist yet in Portugal (p. 148). Indeed, he would sustain that thought for some time. In another work, O Sistema Corporativo (The Corporate System, 1938), he attempted to trace the historical path of Portuguese corporatism, taking into perspective the "Portuguese experience" and explaining "its way of seeing people”. Seeking to reveal the origins, both distant and recent, of Portuguese corporatism, rooting it in the medieval guilds and Catholic corporatism, he tried to support what he saw as a certain originality in Portuguese corporatism. He launched post-graduate courses in Corporate Law at the Law School, held the position of chair of Administrative Law and ran the programme in Colonial Administration. He was also in charge of Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Portuguese Legal History and Political Economy.

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