Professor Zick graduated summa cum laude from Indiana University and summa cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, where he received the Francis E. Lucey, S.J. Award for graduating first in his class. While at Georgetown, Professor Zick was a Notes and Comments editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, Professor Zick was an associate with the law firms of Williams and Connolly in Washington, D.C., where he assisted in the defense of congressional term limits in the Supreme Court of the United States, and Foley Hoag in Boston. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Levin H. Campbell of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Professor Zick also served as a Trial Attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the United States Department of Justice, where he defended the constitutionality and legality of a variety of federal programs and statutes.

Professor Zick has written on a variety of constitutional issues, with a special focus on the First Amendment. He is the author of four university press books on the subject: Speech Out of Doors: Preserving First Amendment Liberties in Public Places (Cambridge University Press, 2009); The Cosmopolitan First Amendment: Protecting Transborder Expressive and Religious Liberties (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Dynamic Free Speech Clause: Free Speech and Its Relation to Other Constitutional Rights (Oxford University Press, 2018); and The First Amendment Lessons of the Trump Era (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Professor Zick has been a frequent commentator in local, national, and international media regarding public protests and other First Amendment concerns. He testified before Congress on the Occupy Wall Street protests and rights of free speech, assembly, and petition. Professor Zick has been the recipient of the Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence in 2011, 2013 and 2017.