Darby received her B.A. and M.A. from the College of William & Mary and her J.D. from Vanderbilt University, where she was also Senior Managing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. Following law school, she clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and then practiced commercial litigation with Locke Lord in Dallas. In 1995 she was named both Outstanding Young Lawyer in Dallas and Outstanding Director of the Texas Young Lawyers Association.
She has taught legal research and writing, moot court, and other subjects. When she was a professor at Stetson University College of Law in Florida, she received Stetson University’s Teaching Excellence Award and Stetson University’s Homer and Dolly Hand Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship.
Darby is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. She is a member of the Legal Writing Institute and was a Managing Editor of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. She is the Immediate Past President of Scribes–The American Society of Legal Writers and was a Managing Editor of the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing. She was the 2005 recipient of the Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education. She is the original author of the ALWD Citation Manual. 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.
She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools and is also a Past Chair of several AALS sections, including the Section for the Law School Dean and the Section on Institutional Advancement. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Sustaining Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, and an inaugural member of The Texas Tech University School of Law American Inn of Court. She also serves on the Council of the Appellate Section of the State Bar of Texas.
“We greatly look forward to working with Dean Dickerson to produce practice-ready lawyers, as she takes the reins of our historic, mission-driven institution,” said Leonard F. Amari, President of the Board of Trustees of The John Marshall Law School.
“We are delighted that Dean Darby Dickerson will be leading The John Marshall Law School at this pivotal point in our history. Her dynamic style and deep knowledge of skills-based learning stood out to all who met her during the process,” said Paula Hudson Holderman, a member of the law school’s Board of Trustees and chair of the decanal search committee.
“I am incredibly honored to lead John Marshall, which has such an inclusive and engaged community. I am committed to continuing the school’s legacy of innovation, opportunity and excellence. I am also looking forward to working with the school’s students, faculty, staff and alumni and to working with members of the Chicago and Illinois bars to help advance legal education and the legal profession,” said Dickerson.
Dickerson succeeds John E. Corkery, who is retiring after serving as Dean of John Marshall for nearly a decade. “On behalf of The John Marshall Law School, I want to express our deep gratitude to Dean Corkery for his years of service to the law school,” said Amari. “He steered the law school through a difficult time in higher education and positioned it to meet the challenges of educating the next generation of lawyers.”
(mew)