Nancy Albert-Goldberg earned both her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Chicago. After graduation in 1971, she was admitted to the Illinois Bar and worked for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association until 1976. During her tenure she was promoted to the Director of the National Study Commission on Defense Services. In 1985, Albert-Goldberg began her first foray into private practice, which she later left to once again work as a public defender in Lake County, Illinois.

During the mid-1980s and early 1990s she was an adjunct professor of law at Northeastern Illinois University and Chicago-Kent College of Law. She has also served as an Assistant Illinois Attorney General, and has argued cases in the Illinois Supreme Court and appellate courts. From 1993 to 1995, she was an attorney with the Illinois Death Penalty Resource Center.

She has published widely on criminal law and constitutional criminal procedure, and she has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and Northeastern Illinois University. She is currently engaged in the private practice of law.