Dean Darby Dickerson joined Southwestern as its 12th Dean and second female dean in July 2021. She has extensive experience in leadership, teaching, scholarship, community service, and philanthropy.
Executive/Legal Education Experience:
Dean Dickerson is the second-longest-serving dean in the United States. She has led five schools: she was the inaugural dean at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, the Dean/CEO of The John Marshall Law (which she helped to merge into the University of Illinois Chicago), Dean and the W. Frank Newton Professor of Law at Texas Tech University School of Law, and Dean and Vice President of Stetson University College of Law.
She started her full-time academic career at Stetson, joining the faculty in 1995. At Stetson, she also served in a wide variety of other administrative roles, including Interim Dean, Vice Dean, Associate Dean, Director of Legal Research & Writing, Moot Court Board Director, and Law Review Advisor.
Over the years, she has taught Legal Research and Writing, Contract Drafting and Review, Torts, ADR, Arbitration, and Election Law. She has supervised various externships, including creating a full-time Regional Externship Program at Texas Tech, and served as the faculty advisor or coach for law reviews and moot court boards and teams.
Her scholarship, which includes two books, several book chapters, and dozens of articles, focuses on legal writing, drafting, and editing; legal education; higher education; and pretrial civil litigation practice.
“We live in challenging times, but with challenge, there is always opportunity. And Southwestern is a place of incredible opportunity.”
~Darby Dickerson (Southwestern's President/Dean)
Leadership and Affiliations:
A nationally known leader in legal education, Dickerson is active in the Association of American Law Schools. In addition to serving as President in 2020, she served two terms on the Executive Committee, one term on the Membership Review Committee, represented the organization in the ABA House of Representatives, and chaired various committees, including Nominations, and Audit & Investment. She has also served as Chair of several AALS sections, including the Section for the Law School Dean and the Section on Institutional Advancement. She chaired the AALS Deans Forum Steering Committee during 2019, served as Chair of the AALS Fellows, and moderated the AALS “Faculty Focus” series.
She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Sustaining Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, the Immediate Past President Scribes—The American Society of Legal Writers, and a former Director of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. She is active in the American Inns of Court, having been part of five Inns: The Mac Taylor Inn in Dallas, the Ferguson-White Inn of Court in Tampa (where she served on the Executive Committee and as President), the Texas Tech University School of Law Inn of Court in Lubbock (where she was a founding member and on the Executive Committee), the Chicago Inn of Court, and the Southwestern Law School Inn of Court (where she serves as President), and the Tom Bradley-Arleigh M. Woods Inn of Court (where she serves as President). She has also been active in bar activities at the local, state, and national levels.
She has served on the Red Cross in Tampa (serving as President), Lubbock, and Los Angeles. Since 2018, she has served as a volunteer microfinance loan editor for Kiva.org. She’s also participated as a “Big” in Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
Education, Early Practice, and Awards:
Dickerson received her B.A. and M.A. from The College of William & Mary, and her J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School. Following law school, she clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and then practiced commercial litigation in Dallas with the firm now known as Troutman Pepper Locke.
In 2021, she completed a Master Online Teacher certificate through the University of Illinois Springfield, where she is also pursuing a Master Online Leadership and Advocacy certificate, and Arizona State University Lodestar Center’s Executive Nonprofit Management certificate.
In 1995, she was named both Outstanding Young Lawyer in Dallas and Outstanding Director of the Texas Young Lawyers Association. In January 2013, she was the inaugural recipient of the Darby Dickerson Award for Revolutionary Change in Legal Writing, named by the Association of Legal Writing Directors to honor her contributions to legal writing. In 2018, she received the AALS Section of Legal Writing, Research, and Reasoning’s lifetime achievement award. In 2025, she was inducted into Stetson Law's Hall of Fame. She has also received a variety of other awards for her professional, charitable, and community service.
In January 2026, she was named to National Jurist's Most Influential Individuals in Legal Education" list for the third consecutive time.
