Crystal Nix-Hines

Nix-Hines heads her firm’s new education practice group, which means for much of the past year, her practice has revolved around the pandemic.

Beginning with lockdowns last spring, she has defended major universities across the country in class actions by students who could no longer attend classes on campus and wanted their tuition and fees refunded.

Her practice group represents more universities than any other law firm. In the refund cases, she initially represented 11 schools, including Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University and several in Rhode Island.

Nix-Hines and her group moved to dismiss the actions, and initially, rulings tended to go against her clients. But she believes the tide has turned since she won important victories for Duke and four Rhode Island schools. Talab v. Duke University, 1:20-cv-480, (M.D. N.C., filed May 29, 2021); Choi v. Brown University, 1:20-cv-00191 (D. R.I., filed April 30, 2021).

Litigation against two of the Rhode Island schools continues but limited to fees. “For them, the tuition was the huge victory because that could have been crippling had they been exposed to liability there,” she said.

Nix-Hines also was one of the attorneys who sprang into action when the Trump administration issued a surprise policy change that would have kept most international students out of the U.S. while campuses were closed. She and her team spent just 48 hours to prepare a detailed complaint and injunction motions on behalf of Johns Hopkins.

Faced with lawsuits from more than 200 schools and states, the administration almost immediately reversed the policy change.

In addition to her education matters, Niz-Hines oversees the firm’s work defending General Motors in consumer class actions alleging defects in vehicles.

She also participates in confidential investigations, including reviews of corporate diversity and inclusion issues and a recent investigation into alleged sexual abuse within the religious group People of Praise.

Nix-Hines has a somewhat unusual résumé, even for a partner in a large firm. She has been a New York Times reporter, a State Department official, a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O’Connor and the U.S. ambassador to UNESCO from 2014 to 2017, based in Paris. She also wrote for and co-produced a couple of television series.

— Don DeBenedictis