Dr. Nickles has a joint appoint to the Babcock School and the Wake Forest School of Law. He is also an associated professor in the Wake Forest Divinity School. His specialties include commercial law and debtor-creditor law, including bankruptcy. An advocate of interdisciplinary study, he also teaches law and ethics and courses that combine the subjects of law and management, such as managerial economics and law; bankruptcy from a business perspective; and church and law, which studies churches as business enterprises. He is the long-time, senior adviser on academic technology to West (A Thomson Business), which is the country’s leading publisher of legal materials for law practice and legal education; and he is a member of the technology committee of the Section on Legal Education of the American Bar Association. He also served as an inaugural member of the Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board, which Congress established in 2000 to function as the board of directors of the IRS.

Dr. Nickles' work includes treatises used by judges and lawyers, textbooks used in law schools and many articles published in law reviews. His expertise inclues: Commercial and banking law, consumer law and creditors' rights and bankruptcy.