The son of Francisco Javier Cuadra Cornejo – lawyer of El Teniente mine – and María Cristina Lizana Alvear, Francisco Javier Cuadra spent his childhood and adolescence in his hometown of Rancagua with his brothers Cristián, Juan Pablo, Gonzalo, and José Miguel. There he studied at the Instituto O'Higgins and then went to university in Santiago: he first entered Adolfo Ibáñez University, where he took five semesters of Commercial Engineering, but after the coup of 1973 he changed to Law at the Pontifical Catholic University, where he received a degree in that discipline.