[citation needed] Olson attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism in 1986.

[2] She served as an intern in the sports department of the Los Angeles Times before leaving to attend Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, California.

She interned with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, the Student Press Law Center, and the Media Access Project.

She served as a trial attorney and later Deputy Director of the National Church Arson Task Force in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division from 1992 to 1997.

In 1997, Olson joined the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Idaho, rising to the rank of Senior Litigation Counsel at the time of her appointment in 2010.