Palmer, Simcox Step Into New Deanship Roles
Building on Stetson Law’s commitment to supporting student success in law school and beyond, College of Law Dean D. Benjamin Barros has appointed Professor Jason Palmer as Vice Dean and Professor Stacey-Rae Simcox as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
Their insight and guidance in these roles will ensure that the College of Law will retain its academic rigor, grow in its capacity to support students, and engage alumni as well as the greater legal community.
Professor Jason Palmer becomes Vice Dean
Dean Barros has chosen Dean Palmer to be Vice Dean of the College of Law due to his exceptional work as associate dean for academic affairs, a role in which he served since summer of 2023.
In this new position, Dean Palmer leads strategic initiatives and oversees educational, administrative, and operational enhancements that advance the College’s priorities and institutional goals.
“Jason’s leadership and outstanding administrative abilities will be instrumental in helping us achieve our ambitious goals for the future,” said Barros. “He has done an exceptional job as associate dean for academic affairs, managing complex and difficult situations, and I look forward to working with him in this new capacity.”
Dean Palmer, who joined the Stetson Law faculty in 2008, teaches legal research and writing, civil procedure, complex litigation, international litigation and arbitration, law and sexuality, and other courses. He has written, published, and spoken extensively on domestic and international mass claims processes, and spent five years in Zurich, Switzerland, adjudicating claims of Holocaust victims who were attempting to recover assets from Swiss banks.
From 2019 to 2021, he served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Professional Development (Arc of Career) Committee. Dean Palmer also served on the board of directors of the nonprofit Legal Writing Institute from 2016-2020 (including as treasurer from 2018 to 2020) and was chair of the AALS Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues.
On campus, he has supported students as an advisor on student legal publications and has helped facilitate workshops to train sign language interpreters how to navigate the complexities of conducting their work in a courtroom setting.
Professor Stacey-Rae Simcox named Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Citing her leadership of Stetson Law’s Veterans Law Institute and Veterans Law Clinic, Dean Barros has also named Professor Stacey-Rae Simcox as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
Dean Simcox will continue her work as Director of the Veterans Law Institute throughout the 2025-2026 academic year. Her dedication to academic excellence and service to veterans reflects two key elements of Stetson Law’s mission.
Teaching veterans law, administrative law, and trusts and estates, Simcox joined the Stetson Law faculty in 2014. Her leadership of the Veterans Law Clinic has helped numerous veterans recover millions of dollars’ worth of previously denied benefits they earned through their service, all while giving clinic students meaningful real-world experience doing legal work.
“I have been impressed with Stacey-Rae’s leadership of the VLI and of some of our most important faculty committees,” said Dean Barros. “I am delighted that Stacey-Rae has agreed to take on this new role, and I look forward to working with her.”
As director of the VLI, she has also forged important partnerships, including a medical-legal partnership between Stetson Law and the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine that brings medical students and faculty and the Stetson Law community together to work for the benefit of disabled veterans.
In 2023, she co-published Veterans Benefits: Law, Theory, and Practice, a textbook for students working at veterans law clinics across the country.
She is a founding member of the National Law School Veterans Clinic Consortium and served as its president and on its board for six years.
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Media contact: Kate Bradshaw
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