Hickman earned her J.D. at Northwestern Law School, where she graduated magna cum laude and was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize[2] for outstanding Senior Research for Chevron's Domain. Hickman holds a B.A. from Trinity University in San Antonio.
Prior to law school, Hickman practiced as a Certified Public Accountant for almost 5 years.[3] Based on this experience, she enrolled in law school with the idea of becoming a tax attorney.[4]
Hickman taught as a visiting assistant professor of law at Northwestern Law School from 2003 to 2004. In 2004, she became an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She received tenure in 2008 and was appointed full professor of law in 2011.[2]
Hickman taught at Harvard Law School as the Donald C. Alexander Visiting Professor in Tax Law from 2012 to 2013.
Hickman's scholarship has been published in highly regarded law journals, including Columbia Law Review,[8]Virginia Law Review,[9] and Georgetown Law Journal.[10] According to HeinOnline, by 2020, her articles have been cited almost 1,500 times by courts and other scholars.[11] In March 2020, she was ranked as the second most cited author in the field of Tax Administration[12] and the third most cited in the field of Tax Law[13] according to Google Scholar. A 2018 scholarly impact survey of tenured faculty at U.S. law schools cited her as one of the 4 most "highly-cited scholars who work partly in [tax]".[14]
Her articles are regularly cited in United States Court decisions[2] and have been directly referenced in several United States Supreme Court Decisions including United States v. Mead Corp[15] and City of Arlington, Texas v. FCC.[16] In its 2011 Mayo decision, the "U.S. Supreme Court accepted Hickman's interpretation of the Chevron standard of judicial review of agency regulations, ruling [...] Chevron, and more broadly the APA, should apply to tax regulations."[4]
Hickman, Kristin E.; Pierce, Richard J. Jr. (2019). Federal Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (3rd ed.). St. Paul, MN.: West Academic. ISBN978-1-64242-258-0. OCLC1140123270.
Hickman, Kristin E.; Pierce, Richard J. (2019). Administrative law treatise (6th ed.). New York: Wolters Kluwer. ISBN978-1-5438-0137-8. OCLC1053125104.
Hickman, Kristin E.; Krueger, Matthew D. (2007). "In Search of the 'Modern' Skidmore Standard". Columbia Law Review. 108: 1235–1320. SSRN997321.
— (2007). "Coloring Outside the Lines: Examining Treasury's (Lack of) Compliance With Administrative Procedure Act Rulemaking Requirements". Notre Dame Law Review. 82. SSRN955929.
— (2008). "A Problem of Remedy: Responding to Treasury's (Lack of) Compliance with Administrative Procedure Act Rulemaking Requirements". George Washington Law Review. 76. SSRN1124576.
— (2013). "Unpacking the Force of Law". Vanderbilt Law Review. 66 (2). SSRN2242134.
— (2014). "Administering the Tax System We Have". Duke Law Journal. 63: 1717. SSRN2409069.
Nielson, Aaron; Knudsen, Sanne H.; Wildermuth, Amy J.; Bamzai, Aditya; Pierce, Richard J.; Barmore, Cynthia; Yeatman, William; Walker, Christopher J.; Stack, Kevin M.; Grewal, Andy; Johnson, Steve R.; Hessick, F. Andrew; Adler, Jonathan H.; Sharkey, Catherine M.; Feder, David; Sunstein, Cass R.; Vermeule, Adrian; Levin, Ronald M.; Leske, Kevin O.; Phillips, James Cleith; Ortner, Daniel; Metzger, Gillian E.; Funk, William; Hickman, Kristin E.; Pojanowski, Jeffrey A.; White, Adam; Clarke, Conor (2016). "Reflections on Seminole Rock: The Past, Present, and Future of Deference to Agency Regulatory Interpretations". Yale Journal of Regulation, Notice & Comment Blog. SSRN2847668.
Hickman, Kristin E.; Bednar, Nicholas (2017). "Chevron's Inevitability". George Washington Law Review. 85: 1392–1462. SSRN3031055.
Hickman, Kristin E.; Kerska, Gerald (2017). "Restoring the Lost Anti-Injunction Act". Virginia Law Review. 103: 1683. SSRN3054177.
— (2018). "Symbolism and Separation of Powers in Agency Design". Notre Dame Law Review. 93 (4). SSRN3197252.
Hickman, Kristin E.; Thomson, Mark (2019). "The Chevronization of Auer". Minnesota Law Review. 103: Headnotes. SSRN3342467.
Hickman, Kristin E.; Nielson, Aaron (2021). "Narrowing Chevron's Domain". Duke Law Journal. 70. SSRN3546076.