She was born in
Chicago, Illinois, received a
Bachelor of Arts from
Goddard College in 1968, a
Juris Doctor from the
University of Colorado Law School in 1971 (where she was the Notes and Comments Editor of the
law review), and an
Doctor of Juridical Science from
Harvard University in 1984. While in law school, Olsen did
legal aid work for
migrant farm workers in Colorado. After law school, she was a
law clerk for
Alfred A. Arraj, the Chief Judge of the
United States District Court for the
District of Colorado. In 1973, she represented
Native Americans at
Wounded Knee. She also established a public interest law firm in
Denver, Colorado that handled feminist issues. From 1981 to 1983, while a Doctor of Juridical Science student, she founded a legal academic women's group, the Fem-Crits, which spread across the country. She has written more than 100 scholarly articles, co-authored
Cases and Materials on Family Law: Legal Concepts and Changing Human Relationships, and edited two collections on feminist theory. Her article
The Family and the Market, 96 Harv. L. Rev. 1497 (1983), is one of the most cited works in legal scholarship. She has taught courses in feminist legal theory at Harvard,
Oxford,
Cambridge, Berlin, Frankfurt, the
University of Tokyo, the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at other universities in the United States, Chile, France, Italy, Japan, and Israel. She was a Fellow at Oxford University in 1987 and is a former Overseas Fellow at
Churchill College,
Cambridge University. She has lectured throughout the world. ==References==