Barbara Olson was born Barbara Bracher at Houston, Texas, on December 27 1955. After graduating with a BA from Houston's University of St Thomas in 1978, she became a professional ballet dancer, performing in Houston, New York and San Francisco. She then went to Los Angeles to become a producer and save enough money to finance her law degree, which she received in 1989 from the Benjamin Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University in New York. She spent three years working for the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, before serving as an assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia from 1992 until 1995, prosecuting drug cases.