Nickole Miller

As director of the Children’s Rights Clinic and Middleton Center for Children’s Rights at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, Nickole Miller is passionate about training the next generation of fearless lawyers, and she focuses her practice and teaching on improving legal representation and outcomes for children and youth in the juvenile justice, child welfare, and immigration systems.

Prior to joining the Drake faculty, Nickole started her legal career in Southern California, where she worked with public counsel and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. There, she defended children in deportation proceedings and drafted state legislation and court rules to enhance protections for unaccompanied minors. Her work helped her become a national expert on the intersection of family and immigration law, and she was one of the first attorneys in California to obtain Special Immigrant Juvenile Status orders in family court proceedings. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status provides humanitarian protection for abused, neglected, or abandoned child immigrants’ who are in the United States without lawful status. It is unique because it requires children to obtain special predicate orders from juvenile courts before they can petition the federal government for protection.

She was co-counsel on Bianka M. v. Superior Court, the first California Supreme Court case to address Special Immigrant Juvenile Status predicate orders. That case confirmed that California courts must issue predicate findings for children if the evidence supports them—a ruling that has impacted thousands of children and provided clarification and direction that has assisted trial courts and appellate courts in California and in state courts nationally.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Bianka M. was the culmination of a nearly five-year legal battle on behalf of an incredibly brave and resilient young girl. It required creative legal arguments, coalition building, and perseverance. While I am incredibly proud of the legal outcome, I am humbled by Bianka and what she taught me about the importance of authentically engaging with youth. It is something I strive to now teach my students.

In 2017, Nickole pivoted from direct representation to clinical teaching, first as a clinical teaching fellow with the Immigrant Rights Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

I always knew I wanted to be a clinical law professor. It is the best of both worlds. I get to mentor the next generation of lawyers and teach them the skills to be zealous, child-centered attorneys. I also get to continue representing young people and elevate their voices in legal proceedings.

Now, together with her students at Drake, Nickole represents children in a wide array of legal matters—such as juvenile delinquency, child welfare, guardianship, special education, school discipline, and immigration proceedings. This helps her law students to think about children’s legal needs in a holistic way and to be comfortable addressing more than one kind of legal issue.

It is important for my students to recognize how the challenges facing our clients are intersecting and often complex. I teach my students to support their child and teen clients in a way that reflects the reality of their lives. Sometimes this means a traditional legal response. However, often this requires partnering with social workers, educators, therapists, community agencies, and other stakeholders to address both legal and non-legal issues.

In addition to direct representation, the clinic engages in community education projects and grassroots advocacy efforts aimed at improving outcomes for children.

Nickole also helps law students understand the critical importance of building relationships in order to be a good advocate. She understands that learning to listen to young people is just as important as learning the legal principles at play. To that end, Nickole invites youth activists and those with lived experiences to teach clinic seminar classes since they are the most direct, authentic experts on the needs of young people.

Since becoming an assistant professor in Iowa, Nickole’s advocacy for children and youth has not been limited to the clinic cases in court. She played an important role in the Iowa Supreme Court’s Juvenile Justice Task Force in 2022 and facilitated law student involvement in the task force. She has also been an excellent advocate for young women in Iowa in the juvenile justice system. She serves on the Iowa Task Force for Young Women and has helped draw attention to the disproportionate use of detention for girls and the importance of developing trauma informed and gender responsive alternatives to detention.

Polk County Juvenile Judge Brent Pattison believes Nickole is making a difference for both her law students and youth in the juvenile justice system. “Professor Miller has brought a creative, holistic approach to training law students in child advocacy—and the clinic’s clients are benefiting from it. Our state is lucky to have Professor Miller as an important part of our child advocacy community.”

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