Denver Nicks

Denver Nicks is a Local Legal Initiative staff attorney based in Oklahoma. He joined the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in 2023 from private practice in Oklahoma, where he worked in a wide variety of subject areas, both civil and criminal, including access to public records, defamation, and civil rights. Denver is a 2022 graduate of Tulane Law School, where he represented clients in numerous press freedom and free speech matters as a student attorney with the Tulane First Amendment Clinic.

Prior to embarking on a career in law, Denver was a journalist covering a wide variety of subjects for leading national and international publications, including Rolling Stone, TIME, National Geographic Travel, The Nation, The Daily Beast, Vice, and many more. A former staff writer for TIME magazine, he is the author of the books “CONVICTION: The Murder Trial That Powered Thurgood Marshall’s Fight for Civil Rights,” “Hot Sauce Nation: America’s Burning Obsession,” and “PRIVATE: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, and the Biggest Exposure of Official Secrets in American History.”

Denver holds a J.D. from Tulane Law School, a Master of Science from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a Bachelor of Arts in political science and international studies with honors in the liberal arts from Southern Methodist University.