Born in Lincoln, NE, Erin received her Nursing Diploma from Bryan School of Nursing in 1984. She worked in the Operating Room at Bryan/LGH East (then Bryan Memorial Hospital) for nine years; first as an OR Tech and then as an RN until moving to Kansas City in 1988 to accept the position as Manager of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Mid America Heart Institute of St. Luke's Hospital. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree in 1992 from Webster University.

Also in 1992, she moved to Colorado to assume the position of Director of Nursing at St. Mary-Corwin Regional Medical Center in Pueblo. It was there she met her husband, Jim, an orthopedic surgeon on staff at the hospital, who was moving his practice to Rochester, NY. She worked as a staff nurse at Rochester General Hospital from 1993 - 2000. She completed her Master of Science in Nursing Administration, with distinction, in 1997 from St. John Fisher College in Rochester and graduated cum laude with her Juris Doctor in 2001 from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. While in law school, she held the positions of Executive Editor for the Buffalo Criminal Law Review, Criminal Law Fellow and Class Director for the Student Bar Association. She received the Faculty Choice Award at graduation. She worked as a law clerk for a Workers Compensation defense firm in her last year of law school and stayed on as an Associate until 2002, when she worked as an Assistant District Attorney until moving home to Lincoln in late 2006 to be near family.

She and her husband have three dogs.