Emily Lawson was Lip Gallagher's girlfriend for a brief period in Series 3. Carl had strong feelings for Emily, and when asked to pose as her brother to fool the Benefit Investigators he inadvertently got fitted with an ankle tag stopping him from going into certain areas of the estate. Forced to stay at Emily's house until her real brother returned, Carl unsuccessfully tried to catch her attention with gifts. Later, Emily's mother attacked her boyfriend when she ended up with pubic lice ("crabs") assuming he had cheated, but falsely thinking Lip had been having sex with Mandy Maguire Carl blamed him. Carl soon discovered that Emily was the one who was cheating, with a boy who was very obviously scratching his pubic region. Realizing his mistake, he raced Emily's stepfather back to the Gallagher house to stop him from attacking Lip. Both Lip and Carl received a smack but Emily's stepfather left in a hurry when Mandy threatened to phone her father, locally feared Paddy Maguire.
Emily is the oldest of five children. She has one younger sister named Jade and three younger brothers - Tom (who Carl pretended to be), Harley and one other unnamed.