After a year-long stint at Sidley Austin as a litigator, she returned to Northwestern University as a clinical fellow in law in 2009, and was promoted to assistant professor in 2013.
[4][5] Nirider has stated that one of her reasons for entering juvenile law (in particular focussing on false confessions) was her involvement in the Dassey case while Drizin's postgraduate student in 2007.
Becoming legally expert on how children can be coerced into giving a confession for crimes that they did not commit, Nirider often discusses purposeful or inadvertent tactics which can break down or mislead young people.
[3][14] One such law that Drizin helped to introduce was one requiring juvenile custodial interviews in Wisconsin to be videotaped, which was enacted before the 2006 interrogations of Brendan Dassey.
[4][6][16] She has published extensively on the causes of false confessions, and has been invited to give keynote talks at multitudes of conferences and symposia concerning issues within the justice system and forensic science.
[4][17][18][19][7] Alongside the International Association of Police Chiefs, Nirider and members of the Center have published guidelines on how to effectively interview young people without coercing a false confession.
[20] Nirider has been interviewed about the concerning role of Reid technique interrogation being taught to school officials in order to extract confessions from students, highlighting the stark differences in awareness between adult and juvenile individuals.
[29] Nirider and colleagues repeatedly stated in legal briefs, academic papers and media interviews that Dassey had always said he was at a bonfire on Monday (October 31, 2005),[30][31][32][33] contrary to the record that he adopted the suggestion in 2006 when interrogators claimed they knew he was.