In between living in the Bay Area, Rachel attended the University of California at Santa Barbara where she received a bachelor's degree in psychology, she lived in Japan for two years where she taught English and studied Japanese, and she went to law school in Sacramento at the University of the Pacific. She worked as an attorney at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company for eight years before taking time off to raise her two children. Rachel also invests in old buildings in San Francisco which she renovates and rents out. Her husband, Joerg Beckert, is from Germany.