L. Ali­son Heller grew up in Con­necti­cut and attend­ed Bates Col­lege in Maine. After grad­u­a­tion, she was temp­ing, intern­ing, and shelv­ing books before land­ing in Chapel Hill, North Car­oli­na where she enrolled at the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na School of Law. In 2000, she grad­u­at­ed from UNC with hon­ors and moved to New York City and toiled in sev­er­al law firms. Ali­son opened her own fam­i­ly law and medi­a­tion prac­tice in 2006 to help cou­ples divorce with their san­i­ty intact. Ali­son cur­rent­ly lives in Brook­lyn, NY with her family.