Former Representative Thomas Reynolds, a New York Republican, will be a senior strategic policy adviser. He is prohibited from lobbying Congress until January 2010.
His former chief of staff Sally Vastola is joining as a strategic policy adviser.
Washington-based partner Richard Goldstein will lead the new practice group.
In February, Nixon Peabody laid off 56 attorneys and staff.
Nixon Peabody LLP is one of the largest multi-practice law firms in the US, with offices in seventeen cities in the United States and one in London, and more than seven hundred attorneys in twenty-five major practice areas.