Nancy Benavides

Dean Benavides serves as the Dean of Students at FSU Law, where she oversees student-facing offices, including Student Advancement, Academic Engagement, Bar Success, and Career Services. She has been a part of the law school community since 2000 and works closely with students, faculty, and administration to support student success and enhance the law school experience. She is responsible for all student-related activities and events and provides guidance to students on a wide range of academic, professional, and personal matters.

She designed the law school’s Raising the Bar Professionalism+ Program, which promotes professional development and ethical engagement. In addition, she serves as a faculty advisor to multiple law student organizations, including the Women's Law Symposium and the Cuban American Bar Association.  

Beyond her work with law students, Dean Benavides is deeply involved in mentoring undergraduates. Since 2002, she has overseen FSU Law’s Donald J. Weidner Summer for Undergraduates Program, an award-winning prelaw program that introduces college students to legal education and careers in law. She also teaches a prelaw course for first-year students in FSU’s Bryan Hall Learning Community, and she has advised several undergraduate pre-law organizations.

Dean Benavides is actively engaged in national and state higher education initiatives. She currently serves on The Florida Bar’s Student Education and Admission to the Bar Committee and previously served on the Law School Admission Council Board of Trustees and as chair of the American Association of Law Schools’ Student Services Section.

Her contributions have been widely recognized, including receiving the 2024 Peter Kutulakis Award (AALS Student Services Section, 2024),  ABA Standing Committee for Professionalism Smythe E. Gambrell Award Recipient (Raising the Bar Program Director, 2020), Law Faculty Professionalism Award  (The Florida Bar Standing Committee on Professionalism, 2019), Outstanding Service to Students Award (NASPA/Florida, 2014), and the Florida State University Guardian of the Flame Faculty Award (2013).

She earned both her B.S. and J.D. from the University of Maryland. Before joining FSU Law, she practiced law in Washington, D.C. and was a member (now inactive status) of the Maryland State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar.