She is the older sister of Owen Cavanaugh (Dallas Roberts), whom she loves very much, having grown close during their parents' separation, despite his tendency to meddle in her personal life.
Alicia attended Georgetown University Law Center, where she graduated at the top of her class in 1992, despite her tendency to sleep during lectures she didn’t find interesting.
Following her graduation from Georgetown, she became a junior litigator at mid-sized Chicago law firm Crozier, Abrams & Abbott, where she clocked the most billable hours of any associate.
She befriends her neighbors, but quickly becomes ostracized following a highly publicized sex scandal concerning her husband, the incumbent State's Attorney for Cook County, Illinois.
The tape raises questions over whether Peter abused his office, with accusations of trading political favors for sexual services and material items being lobbied against him.
Alicia is designated the role by Diane of being "the branch between the legal and political", using her husband, who then resides in a county prison, to solicit information on cases she is working, much to the displeasure of judges, who view this practice as unethical.
Believing this to be a reward for her efforts and success, Alicia is overjoyed to become a partner, but becomes furious when she learned that this had only been an attempt to raise money, as a partnership had been offered to all fourth-year associates, including a newly rehired Cary.
While downloading documents for ongoing cases they intend to continue litigating at Florrick/Agos, Diane discovers her plot, and informs Will, who confiscates her laptop and cellphone.
In one instance, Peter threatens to apply sales tax to the Internet and Internet-based companies in a subtle warning to ChumHum (a spoof of Google) that, should they not hire Florrick/Agos as their civil litigator firm, he will hurt their business.
Cary, after a feud with Diane over Alicia's position, resigns to become a guest lecturer at a local college, sick of office politics he has been embroiled in over the past three years.
At the end of season five, Eli, now Peter's chief of staff, proposes she run for state's attorney of Cook County, the office her husband previously occupied.
The incumbent eventually departs from the race, and Alicia, instead, runs opposed to Frank Prady (David Hyde Pierce), a television legal analyst.
After reports of voter fraud surface, Landau reveals to Alicia that he rigged the voting machines in order to preserve the Democratic supermajority in the Illinois state legislature.
The seventh season finds Peter accused of destroying evidence in the murder trial of a wealthy Democratic donor's son during his tenure as state’s attorney.
Diane's husband, Kurt McVeigh (Gary Cole), a ballistics expert, had originally testified that the bullets did not come from the donor’s son’s gun.
They were retested using newer scientific methods by another ballistics expert, Holly, Kurt's protégé (and the new buyer for his business), who testified that the bullets DID come from the donor's son's gun.
He testifies to this and Lucca, in an effort to discredit him (at Alicia's request), accuses him of changing his testimony to protect Holly because they had an affair (while married to Diane).
They considered that Alicia was acting out of maternal concern during the trial, as she didn’t want Grace to put her future on hold because of her father.
Writing for Vanity Fair, Joanna Robinson writes, "While Alicia took her final bow in an era when the ice zombies on Game of Thrones and the sweaty zombies on The Walking Dead rule pop-culture, Alicia Florrick belongs to the time of Walter White, Don Draper, and the other stars of the golden age of the TV antihero."