Darby Dickerson joined Southwestern Law School as President and Dean, and as a Professor of Law, in July 2021. Before joining Southwestern, she served as Dean at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, The John Marshall Law School, Texas Tech University School of Law, and Stetson University College of Law.

Dickerson served as President of the Association of American Law Schools during 2020 and is currently the organization's delegate to the American Bar Association’s House of Representatives.

She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Sustaining Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, a Past President and current Board Member of 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. She is the current President of the Southwestern Law School Inn of Court and has been part of five different Inns across the country.

Dickerson received her B.A. and M.A. from The College of William & Mary and her J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School. She clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and practiced commercial litigation with the firm now known as Locke Lord in Dallas, Texas.

Her areas of teaching and scholarship include legal writing, drafting, editing, and citation; legal and higher education; torts; and pretrial practice.

Her awards and honors include the Burton Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education, ALWD’s Darby Dickerson Award for Revolutionary Change in Legal Writing, the AALS Section of Legal Writing, Research, and Reasoning’s lifetime achievement award, and the Scribes Distinguished Service Award.