About the Author
Darby Dickerson
Dean Dickerson received her B.A. (government and history) and M.A. (government) from the College of William and Mary, and earned her J.D. in 1988 from Vanderbilt Law School, where she served as Senior Managing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review and as a member of the Moot Court Board. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Harry W. Wellford of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and then worked as a litigation associate for six years at the Dallas, Texas firm of Locke Purnell Rain Harrell (now Locke Liddell & Sapp). In 1995, she was named both Outstanding Director of the Texas Young Lawyers Association and the Outstanding Young Lawyer in Dallas.
Dean Dickerson joined the faculty at Stetson University College of Law in Fall 1995. Dean Dickerson served as Director of Legal Research and Writing from 1996 to 2004, Associate Dean from 2000 to 2002, Vice Dean during 2002-2003, and Interim Dean during 2003-2004. She was named Vice President and Dean in February 2004.
Dean Dickerson teaches or has taught alternative dispute resolution, legal research and writing, federal pretrial practice, litigation ethics, and torts. From Fall 1995 until December 1999, she served as the faculty advisor to the Moot Court Board, and is co-founder of Stetson's International Environmental Moot Court Competition. She was an advisor to the Stetson Law Review from 1996 to 2004.
Dean Dickerson's research interests include higher education law and policy, legal citation, and litigation ethics. Her articles appear in the Nebraska Law Review, the Stetson Law Review, the Maryland Law Review, the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, the Toledo Law Review (Law School Leadership Symposium), and the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.
In March 2000, her book, the ALWD Citation Manual: A Professional System of Citation, written on behalf of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, was published by Aspen Publishers, Inc. The third edition was published in December 2005. The book is designed as an alternative to the Bluebook. Professors at about 90 law schools have adopted the book; the book has also been adopted by more than 75 paralegal programs and several law journals. Its use is also approved by the supreme courts of Alabama, Idaho, and Montana, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Dean Dickerson is an officer and director of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the American Red Cross and Scribes, The Amercian Society of Legal Writers. She also serves on the boards of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce. She is a past director of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, and a past officer and director of the Ferguson-White Inn of Court in Tampa. Other professional activities include serving as Vice Chair of the Law School Administration Committee of the ABA's Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, Secretary of the Pinellas County Education Facilities Authority, Managing Editor of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, academic contributor for the eighth edition of Black's Law Dictionary, and member of the Vanderbilt Law School Alumni Board.
In 1997, Dean Dickerson received Stetson University’s Teaching Excellence Award; in 1998 and again in 2000, she received the University’s Homer and Dolly Hand Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship. In June 2005, she received the Burton Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education, and in August 2005, she was named the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s Business Woman of the Year in the Nonprofit/Social Services category.
